From: bob_sidebotham@... (Bob Sidebotham)
Date: 2001-11-01T15:57:56+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:24056] Ruby package management?

I'm brand new to Ruby. I've looked in the archives of comp.lang.ruby,
and found a few references to library packaging, from about half a
year ago. Has anyone done anything about this, or is this an available
project?

I've found most package managers somewhat frustrating to use in the
past. I have in mind something that can install/uninstall packages
easily; keep a record of what happened during installation; go
backward/forward in versions. I'd also like to be able to do an
experimental installation in my own sandbox, before installing it
system-wide. And, of course, it should be really easy to create
packages. I also imagine that dependency information could be stored
in packages. I see that "require" does not have version
information--unlike Perl's "use" statement, and I suspect this is the
way it should be--the version information should be provided at a
package level, rather than in each file. I'd like to see easy
installation of packages directly from the web, etc. And last, but not
least, an easy method to create the library package in the first
place.

Is there anyone that believes it would be desirable to use an existing
package manager, like RPM? My gut feeling is no, but I frankly don't
(yet) understand what the issues might be.

Any other thoughts?

Thanks,
Bob Sidebotham