"Just Works" for Developers

(This is probably too long for a discussion on ubuntu-devel, but if
there's positive reaction it can be transferred to a launchpad
specification and wiki page for development.  I'm just looking for
initial reactions.)

Ubuntu is constantly focused on making things easier for the user, but
what about for the users who are developers (or potential developers)?

* queue video of Ballmer yelling "developers, developers, developers!" *

It's hard to find the right packages to get started.  And after you find
the right packages, what libraries to use.

So, at my university I made a few metapackages and added an entry into
gnome-app-install for them:

Development Base
----------------------------
linux-headers-386, linux-headers-686, build-essential, manpages-dev,
manpages-posix-dev

(Had to explicitly specify 386 and 686 since that's all that our users
run.  Maybe a linux-headers package that's available across all
architectures that depends on the proper package could be made?)

GUI Development
----------------------------
gnome-devel, libgtkmm-2.4-dev, libglademm-2.4-dev, libgconfmm-2.6-dev,
libgnomemm-2.6-dev, libgnomecanvasmm-2.6-dev, libgnomeuimm-2.6-dev,
libgnome-vfsmm-2.6-dev

GUI Development Documentation
----------------------------
devhelp, glade-doc-2, libgtk2.0-doc, libgtkmm-2.4-doc, libglib2.0-doc,
libgnome2-doc, libgnomecanvas2-doc, libgnomedb2-doc,
libgnomeprint2.2-doc, libgnomeprintui2.2-doc, libxml2-doc

Things missing from above:

* GStreamer
One thing I didn't add was gstreamer.  If something like this did get
officially added to Ubuntu it'd probably be best to only suggest
stabilized API's.

* Mono
Looks like mono and libgtk-cil are in main since breezy.  Those could be
added to the above dependencies (or everything could be split into C, C
++, .NET, etc.)

* Python & friends
Already installed by ubuntu-desktop.

* Java

I'm not familiar with the status of all the open source Java stuff,
though probably worth adding considering its popularity server-side.

* IDE

Anjuta is probably the best bet for C/C++.  1.2 is rather lacking, but
2.0 seems promising.  Then there's MonoDevelop for .NET, Eclipse for
Java, and I'm not sure what for Python.

* Architecture Documentation

Lastly is an overview documentation of GNOME and related technologies.
A lot of times it's hard to find out exactly where to begin.  Luckily,
this is in the works, as some of you are probably aware of.  Of course
the names and links escape me at the moment but "I read it on
planet.gnome.org so it must be true". ;)