A Plea to Reduce Dependences (e.g., for swig)

[Dan Ports]

On Tue, Aug 16, 2011 at 03:29:38PM -0400, Daniel J. Luke wrote:
> see https://trac.macports.org/wiki/FAQ#ownlibs

FWIW, I find that FAQ answer really unsatisfying. I agree that there
are good reasons why MacPorts uses its own libraries, but the claim
that "the drawbacks of this policy are minimal" just seems wrong. There
are certainly cases where installing some port pulls in many more
dependencies than you'd expect, and this has been a frequent complaint.

It may well be true that we are, on the whole, better off for building
these dependencies, but we shouldn't dismiss the cost of doing so.

Dan

-- 
Dan R. K. Ports              MIT CSAIL                http://drkp.net/