Thomas Hood wrote:
On Mon, 2003-09-22 at 00:24, Daniel B. wrote in part:
Debian seems to use the word dependency backwards a lot, making
things confusing and hard to understand.
[...]
If A depends on B, then A is a
dependency (A is dependent on B). B is _not_ a dependency of A.
The word 'dependency' can denote the relation between A and B ;
then it isn't oriented one way or the other, e.g., 'There is a
dependency between A and B'.
Right, that's that primary meaning of dependency (sense 1 in the
dictionary I quoted). In Debian, *most* uses of dependency seem
to refer to a relationship, and are not a problem. (Although a few
might be slightly ambiguous, they're not incorrect.)
However, recall that dependency has a second meaning: something
that depends on something else. (Consider for example the U.S.
dependencies listed at http://falcon.jmu.edu/~ramseyil/states.htm#C ).
It's the cases where Debian erroneously uses dependency to refer
to the thing that is depended on (instead of the thing that depends
on something else) that are a problem.
To indicate the orientation you have
to say something like 'A depends on B'.
Yes, that is certainly the clearest way to indicate the orientation.
I think you make a worthwhile point that in some cases the
direction of the dependency should be indicated more clearly.
...see bug ...212013...
You meant #212031.
Yep; sorry to make you search for it.
Since merely using dependency correctly would be ambiguous given
all the incorrect usage, Debian should probably refer to depended-on
package (or library, etc., as the case may be). That construct would
be unambiguous and perfectly clear (and wouldn't be much longer than
dependency).
Suppose we are talking about A. Then your complaint is that
A's dependencies
is ambiguous between denoting the packages that depend on A and
the packages upon which A depends.
Yes, is ambiguous are you described, but to clarify:
My core complaint is that saying A's dependencies when one means
the things that A depends on is plain old wrong (and therefore
confusing).
I was only saying that A's dependencies would be ambiguous because,
given all the incorrect usage, you can't tell whether it was written
correctly and means the things that depends on A, or whether it was
written incorrectly and means the opposite, the things on which A
depends.
I don't see how
A's depended-on packages
is any clearer. Actually it seems worse to me. I suggest using
packages upon which A depends
and
packages that depend on A
wherever the ambiguity matters.
Yes, that would be even clearer than A's depended-on packages.
I had suggested A's depended-on packages because I thought people
would object to the longer phrasing you suggested.
Actually, another replacement for one case would be prerequisite.
The two main cases would be:
- referring to the relationship: Apt analyzes dependencies
- referring to the depended-on items (the items upon which some
given item depends): perl's prerequisites must be installed to
install perl
(The third case, which is much less common, is referring to items
that depend on a given item. Technically, it is correct to call
those items dependencies of the given item (in sense 2). However,
saying A's dependencies is ambiguous in two ways:
- A's dependencies is ambiguous between referring to the
dependency relationships and referring to the items that depend
on A.
- It is ambiguous between current incorrect use referring to the
items on which A depends and correct use referring to the items
which depends on A.
Therefore, any instances of the third case should probably use
something like packages that depend on A as you suggest.)
Daniel
--
Daniel Barclay
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
