From: Gavin Sinclair <gsinclair@...>
Date: 2002-09-06T00:56:59+09:00
Subject: Re: suggestions to the Ruby community


----- Original Message -----
From: "W Kent Starr" <elderburn@mindspring.com>


>
> > Don't underestimate CPAN, here if we have a problem we click over to
> > CPAN pick up a module and away we go, it doesn't matter that it is just
> > a wrapper around a .so as far as appearances go Perl has provided a
> > solution and it was quick and easy.
> >
>
> CPAN is a wonderful thing. -If- there exists a module to solve a given
> problem it is relatively easy to find and, for someone with a basic
> understanding of perl, easy to adapt. If one doesn't exist, someone
> proficient in perl can create one.
>
> Increasingly, the Ruby community is developing quite an extensive
> collection of libraries, as well. Unfortunately, it is not (yet) as easy
> to find what you need as it is with CPAN. I expect this will be
> addressed and corrected soon and will be one less barrier toward the
> adoption of Ruby by a larger number of programmers.
>
> Kent Starr

[snippage everywhere]

Allow me to ask one question about this.  Is there a nice client-based access
to CPAN?  Like a command-line program that just lists available packages and
installs the ones you want?  I never got into Perl for long enough to find out;
my CPAN experience was entirely web-based.

I'm curious because I want to see that happen for Ruby.  beef_up(:rpkg + :RAA)
should meet this need.

Given the large disk drives we all have now (except for some *really* devoted
Linux hackers ;-), I'd like to be able to download *all* RAA packages and
update my collection each week.

Cheers,
Gavin