From: ptkwt@...1.aracnet.com (Phil Tomson) Date: 2002-10-23T02:37:34+09:00 Subject: Re: RAA.succ? In article <3b3ad3b4.0210211059.324d30db@posting.google.com>, Patrick May wrote: >ptkwt@shell1.aracnet.com (Phil Tomson) wrote in message >news:... >> I'd definately like to see >> some central repository that could be mirrored instead of the current >> model where modules actually live on the contributors server (whether at >> home or on an ISP) - needless to say, this tends to lead to the >> disappearance of packages. > >This sounds similar rpkg: > >http://www.ruby-lang.org/en/raa-list.rhtml?name=rpkg > No doubt rpkg should be part of raa.succ, but it still doesn't address the need for a central, mirrorable repository for packages/modules/snippets. Just this morning there was a message on the list about someone not being able to find the FastCGI module - the link given on the RAA is now dead. This is a _major_ problem! Until we have a central repository that is mirrored we have to face the fact that the RAA is just a list of pointers to potentially non-existent locations. Key packages can (and do) just disappear when someone's webserver goes away or when someone moves to another ISP. It might be an interesting exercise to write a script that tries to get to all the links on the RAA to see how many of them are still active. In regards to rpkg: Is it going to be included in Ruby's standard libraries? I tend to think this needs to happen in order for it to become widely used. Newbies may not know much about downloading and installing a package. Others may not have root access on their machines. If it comes with Ruby then it's more likely to become widely used. Phil