Re: DEPENDS semantics (was: removing useless dependencies)

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

On Sun, Jul 12, 2015 at 05:56:41PM +0000, David Holland wrote:
> On Sun, Jul 12, 2015 at 06:22:50PM +0200, Joerg Sonnenberger wrote:
>  > 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
>  >
>  > [...]
>  > assuming
> 
> See, there's the problem - you can't build special-case assumptions
> into a general-purpose construct like package patterns and expect to
> get sensible results.

Edgar already gave the reason why the current choice is sensible at last
for a subset. The rest just comes from the need of providing *some*
ordering. To go back to the topic at hand: stop using alternatives when
there is no good reason in first place.

Joerg