Is there a way to force dep ensure -update to download the newest version of a dependency

[e-nikolov]

Some libraries are still in alpha version and frequently break backwards compatibility or remove/replace existing packages. If such a package is imported in my project, and I call dep ensure, I get a message that dep could not introduce that dependency due to multiple problematic subpackages.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but if I want to obtain the new version of the dependency anyway and deal with the incorrect imports afterwards, I'd have to first remove the offending imports myself from my project and only then call dep ensure.

It would be nice if I could force dep ensure to download the latest source of a dependency, regardless of the current imports.

Is there any way to achieve this right now?

[carolynvs]

I don't know of a way to achieve this right now with dep but it's a great scenario to consider! 👍

Maybe something like dep ensure -update github.com/unstable/pos@totesbrokes -ignore-build-error?

/cc @sdboyer

[JeanMertz]

This would be great to have. I too regularly run into this problem when using our own internal packages that introduce backward breaking changes.

[tom10271]

It is very annoying to change code to fit new version without actual code so that IDE can provide autocomplete. I started to use dep for a while and found this is a "super different design" compare to other stable, well personally, less complaining from other team, package manager including npm, jspm, bower, composer.

[sdboyer]

To the original question - pretty much the exact same thing came up over here #1265 (comment). The idea was to have a flag that could turn off this sort of semantic checking. i doubt we'll get to it in dep, but the successor tool will definitely need it.

@tom10271 yes, it's a known frustration. We opted for it as a design on the expectation that, once we get away from having a vendor directory, the problem goes away - if the code's already downloaded in the central package storage area, rather than in vendor, then IDE autocomplete can look there, and there's no longer a chicken-or-egg problem.

vgo has introduced just such a separate space, and it's one of the things about it that works well.