Reduce dependency for p5-WWW-Mechanize*

[Erwin Lansing]

On Sat, Oct 16, 2004 at 10:48:21AM +0200, Lars Thegler wrote:
> Jun Kuriyama wrote:
> >Hi again, :-)
> >
> >More dependency reducing here:
> 
> While I understand the motivation for dependency reduction, I have a 
> feeling that, in the case of Perl modules, this is the wrong direction 
> to go. I agree, that for instance, Pod::Parser v1.14 is currently 
> included in lang/perl5.8. But what should happen, when this module is 
> updated on CPAN, and textproc/p5-PodParser is updated? IMHO, the user 
> would want the module to be updated. But if there is no dependency, the 
> port is not installed, and the module is not updated. I agree, that we 
> can remove the dependency now, but then we should reinsert it when 
> textproc/p5-PodParser is updated, and I do not see that happening ;)
> 
<rant>
This is exactly the reason why I think it was a major mistake of the
perl people to include even more and more modules in the distribution. A
year or so ago, I spend a huge amount of time trying to conditionalise
the dependencies for modules now included in 5.8, only to find out that
this might not be the best solutions after all. Modules should be
modules, not distribution!
</rant>

I agree with Lars that this is a non-trivial issue. The modules now
included in the distribution, don't stand still and other modules are
going to depend on newer version of those, that are not in the
distribution. Adding and removing the dependency depending on if the
module has a newer version on CPAN than in the distribution might be the
techinically best solution, but it's practically infeasible. I think
that the best way is to keep the dependency, as long as it doesn't
overwrite files from the distribution.

Cheers,
-erwin

-- 
                    _._     _,-'""`-._
Erwin Lansing      (,-.`._,'(       |\`-/|    erwin at lansing.dk
http://droso.org       `-.-' \ )-`( , o o)    erwin at FreeBSD.org
                    -bf-      `-    \`_`"'-
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