I would very much like to argue that not using dh is not a bug, but Joey Hess, with his credentials ☺, did that already (and much better than I could):
http://joeyh.name/blog/entry/80_percent/ tl;dr: dh started as 80% solution, it’s maybe an 96% solution now, but it’s not intended as, and won’t be, a 100% solution. I’d also throw in that monocultures are not good, and that people in general are happier when they aren’t forced into anything. Just yesterday I had a bug that wouldn’t have happened with a non-dh7 rules file (incidentally, ordering matters, so I had to add a call to mkdir -p debian/binarypackagename/some/directory into an over‐ ride). And finally, rules with too many overrides are actually worse readable than classic debhelper style. I also have packages where the automatic build system detection of dh is wrong. Understandably wrong, but wrong nevertheless. Oh, and… to learn, automagisms are not so good, because you don’t see what’s going on, and can’t change it on an intuitive or more fine-granular level (though with DH_VERBOSE=1 mandated by default by recent Policy changes, this may have improved a little). So… to each their own. I’d make a case for non-debhelper to be allowed, but I know that’s not majority-capable… but if people wish to use debhelper, dh7, or even *shudder* dbs or cdbs, fine. Remember people make this often in their spare time and aren’t getting paid for it so please keep the fun factor. Thanks, //mirabilos -- This space for rent. https://paypal.me/mirabilos to support my work.
