rubber dependencies

[Arno Hautala]

On Fri, Aug 20, 2010 at 06:47, Michael Williams <mike at pentangle.net> wrote:
>
> Why then does the MacPorts rubber package depend on 142 packages, including the MacPorts perl, python, texlive and X11 systems ($ port rdeps rubber | wc -l)? Is this intended?

Yes, it is intended.  Directly, Rubber only depends on Python and
TexLive.  Those 142 other packages are brought in when you fully
follow the dependencies of Python and TexLive.  It's the goal of
MacPorts to be as self-contained as possible.  This means installing
python, perl, X, etc. even though those software are indeed already
available through MacOS X.  Being independent protects the MacPorts
software in the event that the OS or externally installed software
changes in an incompatible way.

> If so, given that I really only want to install this little script), does that mean that MacPorts is not for me? Should I be using brew, which emphasizes its lack of dependencies on packages that come with OS X (Python, Perl, X11) or are often installed in some other way (TeX)?

Perhaps.  MacPorts has a target problem set and solution approach.  If
those decisions don't line up with your goals, it's appropriate to
seek a more appropriate solution.
It also doesn't need to be an all or nothing approach.  MacPorts can
live happily next to Fink and I see no reason why Homebrew would be
any different.

-- 
arno  s  hautala    /-|   arno at alum.wpi.edu

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