Re: DEPENDS semantics (was: removing useless dependencies)

[Joerg Sonnenberger <joerg%britannica.bec.de@localhost>]

On Sun, Jul 12, 2015 at 04:56:31PM +0100, David Brownlee wrote:
> If the possible dependencies are specified as an ordered list, then a reasonable expectation would be that the first one which is present is used. 
> 
> So {foo>=5.00, bar>=8.00} if there is a foo>=5 present then bar would never be even checked

First of all, the alternate pattern is not restricted to the base name.
One typical use case is to allow a plain version and any nb* subversion.
Second, assuming foo and bar share release cycles and have consistent
version numbers. Why would it make sense to pick a 10 year old version
of foo over a much newer version of bar?

What it boils down to: this is an arbitrary convention and there are
good reason for the choice either way. That doesn't make the choice a
bug as stated initially.

Joerg