[Pkg-vala-maintainers] Bug#663317: pdf-presenter-console: planned vala 0.12 removal

[Michael Biebl]

Hi Barak,

On 10.03.2012 10:15, Barak A. Pearlmutter wrote:
> Thanks; happy to update.
> 
> One question: what is the "right" way to write the dependency?
> It seems like
>  Build-Depends: valac-0.14 | valac (>= 0.11.0)
> would be quite fragile, in that you'll have to ask me to change it
> again next time valac bumps a version.
> So, what do you recommend?

It depends.
I did a quick test-compilation of pdf-presenter-console with
valac-0.14_0.14.2-1 and valac-0.16_0.15.2-1

And while the package built without modifications with valac-0.14, it
failed with 0.16. This shows, that the chances between major releases
still sometimes cause breakage for some packages.

So, in your case, replacing valac-0.12 with valac-0.14 is safer.
If you can make pdf-presenter-console work with both valac-0.12, 0.14
and 0.16, that would be the ideal solution. In that case using
valac (>= $minversion) is best.

But you can't know if pdf-presenter-console will break with a future
0.18 version of valac beforehand, you ask?

True, but before making a new major vala version the default, we usually
do a test-compile for all affected packages to file bugs in advance, in
case they are going to ftbfs.

Should your package just build, you have no work to do at all.
Should it ftbfs, you will need to fix it anyway, sooner or later, as we
won't keep older versions around forever.

So, to sum up an already long email: In general I'd recommend to use
valac (>= $ver) unless you require specific valac features which only
the latest non-default valac provides (atm. 0.16). In that case
valac-0.16 or valac (>= 0.16) | valac-0.16 would be ok.

Michael




-- 
Why is it that all of the instruments seeking intelligent life in the
universe are pointed away from Earth?

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