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AGL: An interresting discussion point. Personally I always use apt on the command line - I wonder what packages I'm missing out on

As a maintainer I use these on most of my packages, and lament the fact that they will in fact go un-noticed to a large proportion of users who stick to using apt-get to install just what they need. The problem worsens - the task packages (which havn't gone away quite yet... =) make extensive use of lesser relationships like Recommends and Suggests, and these are silently ignored by apt.

So why doesn't apt-get support Recommends and Suggests? It was mentioned on IRC that it's because apt's meant to be a backend, not a user tool... that doesn't cut the mustard with me. Whoever heard of an interactive backend? How nice it would be to be able to say --recommends=yes, or --suggests=ask, or specify similar options in apt.conf, and have apt include the recommended packages and prompt us with a list of the suggested packages, or something along those lines.

I know I'm not the only one who thinks Debian's pride and joy falls short of the mark on this count, and as a consequence users miss out on information and functionality, not to mention informed choice. Whilst I lack the knowledge to solve this, I'm sure it's doable. Who else thinks this is a much needed feature? Can anyone who's reading this add it? Maybe we should start a petition or have a DP poll. What do you all think?

-Rob