From: Sean Russell <ser@...>
Date: 2001-11-15T00:13:40+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:25190] Re: Is there something similar to the CPAN module for Ruby?

jennyw wrote:

> Just wondering if there's a way to easily find, download, and install
> modules a la the CPAN module for Perl (it automatically locates CPAN
> sites, downloads the requested module, installs it, etc.).

I've been thinking about writing something like this for Ruby, but I'd like 
to do it "right".

Conceptually, I was thinking about a cross between CPAN and RPM.  What I'd 
like to see is an RPM-like system that has support for all of the standard 
package management mechanisms, and has the ability to query and update from 
the package source (web page, etc).

I wrote something like this in Java for an internal project.  One nice 
feature about that bit of software was that, on an update, it only 
downloaded the bits of the software that had changed, not the entire 
package.  It also automatically downloaded and installed dependancies if 
they didn't already exist on the system.

It worked pretty well, and I've been thinking about porting it to Ruby.  
Full feature support would require some changes to the way Ruby handles 
"libraries", though; being able to have multiple versions of the same 
library on one system is sort of critical... either that, or there must be 
a requirement that all libraries are 100% backwards compatible.

--- SER


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