dependency explosions

[Grzegorz Junka]

On 04/10/2016 05:09, Kurt Jaeger wrote:
> Hi!
>
>>> Right now, we build packages for
>>> [9,10,11,12]x[amd64,i386]x[head,quarterly], that's 16 different sets,
>>> and we mostly manage to build them over and over again, every two days.
>>> Imagine how long it would take to build 320 sets.
>> You are trying to take that into extreme to ridicule this as an option.
> I think the scenario that "if we had variants, other users would
> request other variants" is likely and the number of sets to build
> really would explode like that. It's not to ridicule that option.
>
> The problem is to add code to allow variants is complex and needs
> engineering power.
>

OK, as I mentioned, I was wondering if that would be possible. So, 
apparently, it would, but would require changes in the code. Forget 
about other variants that users may want to propose - if they want other 
variants then they can take it on and maintain. But regarding the 
changes that would be required to only allow other variants, why do you 
say it would be complex? Wouldn't that be only a change in pkg so that 
it can handle dependencies per set properly?

Grzegorz