> Let's assume that you care to keep executables with debugging > symbols around. In that case, the old recommendation would > have you build the package once. The new recommendation > would have you compile twice. Time saved? > > Let's assume that you don't care to keep executables with > debugging symbols around. In that case, you compile without > -g -- end of story.
You forgot the case of recompilations: If default is with -g + strip (as policy currently recommends), a lot of time is wasted on the auto-builder machines. The built source trees there are removed immediately after a successful build. That's what Ben's proposal was about at the start. We want that the "normal" case (what is normal? :-) in future is to build without -g to save CPU cycles on the auto-builders. If there's one or the other package where it's hard to remove the -g or where the maintainer is too lazy to do it, that isn't really bad. On the other hand, the source maintainer and users should have a convenient method to build with debugging symbols. Roman