[ANN] rpa-base 0.1.0 "kitanai"

 
First public release of rpa-base.
=================================

The Ruby Production Archive (RPA) will provide packages of Ruby
libraries and programs in a form that allows production use, engineered
through a stringent process resembling FreeBSD's or Debian's. 

rpa-base is a port/package manager designed to support RPA. Its scope and
purposes are different to those of other systems like RubyGems.

rpa-base 0.1.0 is now available on http://rpa-base.rubyforge.org . 
Please keep in mind that this is *not* a RPA release (that is, a release
of the repository) but just a release of the rpa-base tool itself. We
have provided several sample ports/packages for testing purposes, but
they don't formally belong to RPA. Read below for information on the
libs/apps packaged so far.

rpa-base requires Ruby 1.8.1 (certainly 1.8 at least, it might work on
1.8.0); it has been tested on several Linux distributions, FreeBSD and
win32. We would appreciate feedback (both positive and negative) under
those or any other architecture.

It takes but a couple minutes to install and will allow you to do

 rpa install instiki ruvi

;-)
(NOTE: ruvi, the cool pure-Ruby vim clone, won't work on win32)

Features
========

rpa-base is a port/package manager designed to support RPA's client-side
package management. You can think of it as RPA's apt-get + dpkg. It
features the following (working right now):

 * sane dependency management: rpa-base installs dependencies as needed,
   keeps track of reverse dependencies on uninstall, and will remove no
   longer needed dependencies
 * atomic (de)installs: operations on the local RPA installation are atomic
   transactions; the system has been designed to survive ruby crashes (OS
   crashes too on POSIX systems)
 * modular, extensible design: the 2-phase install is similar to FreeBSD and
   Debian's package creation; rpa-base packages need not be restricted
   to installing everything under a single directory ("1 package, 1 dir"
   paradigm)
 * rdoc integration: RDoc documentation for libraries is generated at install
   time (currently disabled on win32)
 * ri integration: ri data files are generated for all the libraries managed
   by RPA; you can access this information with ri-rpa (currently disabled on
   win32)
 * handling C extensions: if you have the required C toolchain, rpa-base can
   compile extensions as needed
 * unit testing: when a library is installed, its unit tests are run; the
   installation is canceled if they don't pass


Packaged software (for evaluation purposes)
=================

Summary:

	- amrita                                1.0.2
	- bloom                                 0.0.1
	- bluecloth                             0.0.3b
	- crosscase                             0.2
	- hashslice                             1.03
	- instiki                               0.9.1
	- iterator                              0.8
	- keyedlist                             0.4.0
	- linguistics                           1.02
	- log4r                                 1.0.5
	- madeleine                             0.6.1
	- rake                                  0.3.1
	- rcov                                  0.0.1
	- rdoc                                  1.8.1
	- redcloth                              2.0.10
	- ri-rpa                                0.1
	- rubyzip                               0.5.5
	- ruvi                                  0.4.7
	- types                                 0.1.80

Featured apps
=============

name: instiki
version: 0.9.1-1
description: WikiClone running on WEBrick and Madeleine with several text formats.

Instiki lowers the barriers of interest for when you might consider
using a wiki. It's so simple to get running that you'll find yourself
using it for anything -- taking notes, brainstorming, organizing a
gathering.

Features:
* Regular expression search: Find deep stuff really fast
* Revisions: Follow the changes on every page from birth. Rollback to an
  earlier rev
* Export to HTML in a zip: Take the entire wiki with you home or for
  reference
* RSS feeds to track recently revised pages
* Multiple webs: Create separate wikis with their own namespace
* Password-protected webs: Keep it private
* Authors: Each revision is associated with an author, so you can see who
  changed what
* Reference tracker: Which other pages are pointing to the current?
* Speed: Using Madelein for persistence (all pages are in memory)
* Textile formatting2: By ways of Red Cloth
* Embedded webserver: Through WEBrick
* Internationalization: Wiki words in any language!


name: ruvi
version: 0.4.7-3
description: VIM clone

ruvi includes a large subset of vim functionality.
NOTE: ruvi won't run on win32 yet.


name: rcov
version: 0.0.1-1
description: RPA's code coverage info and profiling overview generator
    
rcov allows the developer to identify unused regions of code. It is especially
useful when combined with unit tests, since it will indicate which areas of
the code can't possibly have been tested.

rcov can also gather some basic profiling information (how often a line
of code is run), allowing to locate the hotspots visually.


name: rake
version: 0.3.1-1
description: A simple ruby build program with capabilities similar to make

Rake has the following features:
* Rakefiles (rake's version of Makefiles) are completely defined in
  standard Ruby syntax. No XML files to edit. No quirky Makefile
  syntax to worry about (is that a tab or a space?)
* Users can specify tasks with prerequisites.
* Rake supports rule patterns to sythesize implicit tasks.
* Rake is lightweight. It can be distributed with other projects as a
  be installed on target systems.


name: ri-rpa
version: 0.1-3
description: Ruby Interactive reference
    
ri is a command line tool that displays descriptions of built-in Ruby
methods, classes, and modules. For methods, it shows you the calling
sequence and a description. For classes and modules, it shows a synopsis
along with a list of the methods the class or module implements. All
information is taken from Ruby's sources.
    
The RPA version includes ri information generated from the 1.9 CVS
sources, and can also be used to read the documentation of locally
installed RPA ports.



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