Heterogeneous Requirements

[starcraftman]

Let us assume I have a recipe for a program. The stable version is built from a tar.gz archive. The unstable version is built from source, but requires additional tools like gettext/autopoint.

What goes in self.requires? It seems like when stable is selected, should be empty. When unstable selected, should at least have gettext, perhaps even git.

[starcraftman]

Possible idea, make Recipe.requires a property, collects/inspects information from the Recipe subclass. Such as:

• Inspect type of actively repository selected (i.e. git, archive...) for requirements
• Inspect explicit recipe requirements (like current self.requires array)
• Perhaps even inspect build for commands issued.

Further question, what if a dependency conflicts with another already installed one. I have considered this before and it seems to me thusly:

• Assume dependencies imply stable unless otherwise specified. Unstable, being downstream from stable commits, should work interchangeably when available/working.
• Otherwise, if another repo specified, use an internal silo approach. In this sense, it will take more space but, where problems can occur, they should be all but eliminated by simply isolating a recipe from all external dependencies (safe "stable"/"unstable" ones.

Both of these enhancements to dependency are non-trivial, may require further planning.

[starcraftman]

I'm gonna put this back into backlog, this is a bit further down the road I think.