-dev ports (Was: wxWidgets)

[Freek Dijkstra]

[now with the correct sender so it goes to the list]

Freek Dijkstra asked:

>> I submitted a patch for the wxWidgets portfile just over two months ago.
>>
>> I'm not sure what the typical time is before a patch is put in the
>> repository, but I really appreciate it if someone could do that.

Joshua Root replied:

> 2.9.0 is already available as wxWidgets-devel.

Ah, thanks.

Out of curiosity: why was this report not closed with a referal to the
other package? Why are there actually two packages, especially
considering that they do the same and one of them is non-functional?

Of course it is my own stupid mistake to not consider that option, and
wasting my time on a problem that someone else has already solved, but I
given that there are still quite a lot of other people on the cc I think
I'm not the only one who finds the current situation utterly confusing.

In particular, other ports that depend on wxWidgets will install the
"regular" wxWidgets port, and will fail. Of course, it is possible for
users to still install wxWidgets-dev manually, but that still means they
can not install the ports that depend on the regular wxWidgets, because
the whole dependency chain will fail. to me, this more or less removes
the whole purpose of having a package manager.

Regards,
Freek Dijkstra