From: Matt Lawrence <matt@...>
Date: 2004-09-27T10:59:23+09:00
Subject: Re: RPM of Ruby 1.8.x

On Mon, 27 Sep 2004, Markus wrote:

>     The other option which we frequently use which dates back to before
> RPMs is to have a build CD (which may in fact be an NFS mount) with a
> script that runs a bunch of other scripts in a sub-directory tree.  We
> run this script at an appropriate point the setup of new machines.  In
> this set up, it really is dirt simple to have a script that does the
> configure-make-make boogie but doesn't require manual intervention.

Unfortunately, that violates the "Principle Of Least Surprise".  On a 
RedHat system I should be able to find all of the software installed by 
using "rpm -q".  Even more importantly, the next sysadmin who touches the 
system should be able to do the same.

Right now I'm dealing with about 200 systems, most of which were installed 
by somebody else and handed over to my group to take care of.  Many of the 
people doing the installations seemed to have been marginally competent. 
Quite a few of the other systems were set up by a guy who is brilliant, 
but in love with CMS.  You know, it runs on IBM mainframes under VM. 
Those systems are really scarey to work on, so many things are set up so 
unexpectedly.

These are issues that developers generally don't have to deal with.

-- Matt
It's not what I know that counts, it's what I can remember in time to use.