[Slackbuilds-users] requirements in README files

[David Spencer]

For simple cases, I've noticed over the past year, or maybe more, that
some of the admins do impose a consistent form of words on new
submissions and updates, so the situation is probably getting better
(statistically).  And now that I have seen the form of words that the
admins seem to like, I try to imitate it.

For more complex cases, I would have no problem with stating direct
dependencies in XML, or queue files, or whatever, provided that the
formal language is equally as expressive as a description in English.
But I need to say things like "If you happen to have postgres
installed, gdal will automatically notice it and add some stuff that
you probably don't want, so please think about that and then tell the
SlackBuild to disable it kthxbai" which may be tricky in XML :-)

Yeah, long chains of indirect dependencies are a pain.  They'd be even
more of a pain if our flexible source-based locally-managed dependency
resolution was more rigid.  There's nothing better than noticing that
a tricky dependency turns out to be optional, contrary to expectations
:-)

By the way, I'm noticing more and more upstream packages shipping
'internal' versions of their dependencies.  For all sorts of reasons
that's not good, but it tells us something about how other distros'
dependency management pans out in the real world.

-D.