Strange package dependency problem

[Swamper]

seth vidal wrote:
> > I'm sure that if you came up with some good quality patches that Seth
> > would look at them, but from where I'm sitting it is a waste of precious
> > developer time.
> > If you don't you think volunteer time is more precious than "developer" time
> > think about doing without it.
> 
> I'm going to let you in on a little secret.
> 
> I'm a developer and I'm a volunteer. I don't get paid to work on yum and
> I don't work for red hat. So where does this fit in with my time, eh?
> 
> let me ask something I've asked before.
> 
> if someone asks to do:
> 
> yum update foo bar baz
> 
> all of the packages have updates, but bar and baz need other deps
> updated to update, should yum just update foo and continue merrily?
> 
> It seems like a failure condition to me:
> 'update foo, bar and baz'
> foo bar and baz can't be updated, therefore I should error and tell them
> why.
> 
> If the user would just like foo to be updated then they can ask for it.

Well, I'm a user and a bitcher.  I work hard at both and don't
expect to get paid and I certainly don't expect to get any
respect.  I think I'm getting the hang of this bitching routine
and feel I should get a little credit for all the time and
effort I devote to this task.

To answer your question; yes, yum should update foo and merrily
output a note to the "user" that they don't know wtf they are
doing and read the manual or something.  It shouldn't abort
just because some human typed something illogical at the command
prompt because that's what humans do best.  It is up to the
program to do the logical thing because that's what they do
best.  Really, the logical thing for the update program to do
would be to update anything it can, as long as the update
doesn't break something.  In the spirit of its namesake, when
it's master tells it to fetch three sticks, it should at least
return with one, say woof and drool all over his shoes.