[arch-general] should gawk be in group base-devel?

[Neil Darlow]

Hi,

Jan de Groot wrote:
> For the base/base-devel discussion: when building packages, base-devel
> and base should be installed. Looking at debian-alike distributions, I
> don't see packages makedepending on g++ either when c++ code needs to be
> compiled.

The gcc dependency within base-devel would cover the use of g++.

Perhaps I "muddied" the waters by suggesting that a user could choose to 
not install gawk.

Maybe the real question is: What is the purpose of base-devel?

1) To specify the standalone packages required to build base packages or

2) To specify a recommended set of packages required for package
    building in general

If the answer is (1) and something in base requires gawk to build then I 
suggest gawk should be a dependency of base-devel.

If the answer is (2) then I guess I can live with the implied 
requirement that gawk is installed as part of base _always_.

I suppose I'm being a bit pedantic here but, from my engineering 
background, I don't really like assumptions and would prefer explicit 
requirement.

I don't have the exact quote to hand but it has been said that "90% of 
programming errors arise from false assumptions". I guess that's why 
formal design methodologies evolved - but that's another story ;-)

Regards,
Neil Darlow