Building from sources

I just discovered a fantastic way to get all development libraries in order to compile your favorite app.

I was trying to compile pidgin 2.5.2 for my new great quad core.
And everytime ./configure does not find a library or headers, you have to search it (not so easy sometimes with just apt-get) or disable it with --disable-xxx.

And now comes
sudo apt-get build-dep pidgin

it will install all the dev libs you need :)

But then why not get the package directly for Ubuntu ?
http://www.getdeb.net/app/Pidgin

Pidgin 2.5.2 Hardy 64bits, exactly what I need.... too late I already compiled it from sources....