[Numpy-discussion] [matplotlib-devel] [SciPy-dev] Announcing toydist, improving distribution and packaging situation

[David Cournapeau]

On Sun, Jan 3, 2010 at 3:27 AM, Andrew Straw <strawman at astraw.com> wrote:

>>
> Typically, the dependencies only depend on the smallest subset of what
> they require (if they don't need lapack, they'd only depend on
> python-numpy-core in your example), but yes, if there's an unsatisfiable
> condition, then apt-get will raise an error and abort. In practice, this
> system seems to work quite well, IMO.

Yes, but:
  - debian dependency resolution is complex. I think many people don't
realize how complex the problem really is (AFAIK, any correct scheme
to resolve dependencies in debian requires an algorithm which is
NP-complete )
  - introducing a lot of variants significantly slow down the whole thing.

I think it worths thinking whether our problems warrant such a complexity.

>
> Anyhow, here's the full Debian documentation:
> http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-relationships.html

This is not the part I am afraid of. This is:
http://people.debian.org/~dburrows/model.pdf

cheers,

David