Shorten PackageReference XML for DevelopmentDependency packages

[khellang]

Today, installing a package with developmentDependency set to true results in the following XML:

<PackageReference Include="Nerdbank.GitVersioning" Version="2.3.138">
  <PrivateAssets>all</PrivateAssets>
  <IncludeAssets>runtime; build; native; contentfiles; analyzers</IncludeAssets>
</PackageReference>

This is quite a lot of "stuff" and is pretty hard to write manually. This came up when adding NuGet/NuGetGallery#7124, which will now show the XML in the NuGet gallery:

What would it take to make to "teach" the PackageReference node about DevelopmentDependency to make it a first-class citizen? Somethink like this:

<PackageReference Include="Nerdbank.GitVersioning" Version="2.3.138" DevelopmentDependency="True" />

Has that ship sailed? Was this considered when it was implemented?

[nkolev92]

That was discussed somewhat in the original issue, among other options :)

#4125

Development Dependency itself is flawed in the multi assets world of PackageReference.
Personally I would've rather seen a new item type for dev dependencies.

Regardless, feel free to go through the comments there, but the gist is that having many switches that mean the same thing will be painful.

I think the below is equivalent to what's currently being written, but I don't remember why the above one was chosen.

<PackageReference Include="Nerdbank.GitVersioning" Version="2.3.138">
  <PrivateAssets>all</PrivateAssets>
  <ExcludeAssets>compile</ExcludeAssets>
</PackageReference>

[Nirmal4G]

We now have GlobalPackageReference doing the same thing. @jeffkl implemented this.