Re: Reducing dependency on Boost.Regex

From: Gavin Lambert (boost_at_[hidden])
Date: 2023-03-15 00:31:03

On 15/03/2023 06:35, Robert Ramey wrote:
> Right.  This is a built-in deficiency of the package manager approach. 
> Dependencies are dependent upon the actual end user application and 
> cannot be logically discerned a priori by any package manager.  Contrary 
> to what one would hope, the package manager is not a panacia and trying 
> to make it into one is a hopeless quest which leads to pointless efforts 
> to "eliminate dependencias" and create "standalone" libraries.

What I imagine is part of the problem is that the package management 
ecosystem has grown up independently from the component authors -- so 
the package maintainer runs tools to see "oh, this header file is 
included, that must be a dependency" because they're less familiar with 
the *context* of that inclusion than the actual component author, and 
there aren't even standardized package names let alone a standardized 
way for the component author to indicate to package tools what things 
should be considered required vs. optional.

There are occasional whispers of something almost like that, in the form 
of autoconf, pkg-config, or CMakeFiles that can list dependencies, but 
these aren't universal and can have complex logic based on options.  And 
then there's distinctions between dev and runtime dependencies...