From: ptkwt@...1.aracnet.com (Phil Tomson)
Date: 2002-10-23T15:58:59+09:00
Subject: Re: RAA.succ? (rpkg vs rubynet)

In article <20021023041621.GC48080@perrin.int.nxad.com>,
Sean Chittenden  <sean@rubynet.org> wrote:
>> So what's the latest thinking on RAA.succ?  
>
>It's about to take flight in the form of packages.  The specification
>for rubynet packages will allow for Ruby packages to be distributed as
>skeleton files or as complete packages with all of the source files
>included.  Though the XML dtd doesn't support it yet, rubynet packages
>will also contain build information.  Currently I have code that will
>let you build a module based off of a small set of dot files as
>outlined here:
>
>http://cvs.rubynet.org/index.cgi/projects/rubynet/doc/README?rev=1.2&content-type=text/x-cvsweb-markup
>

Sounds interesting, but again, I'm currently more worried about having all 
the code in a central place with mirroring...

>I will also allow users to write their package information into a
>single .rubynet file and, like rubydoc, it will allow you to include a
>written .rubynet.xml file.
>
>The advantage to rubynet over existing projects ideas for packaging is
>that querying a package database is simply an XPath query on a set of
>gzipped XML.  Recently this has gotten the attention of some folk at
>the W3C and they're keeping tabs on the project's use of XML and XSLT.
>Writing out pages for various modules will be accomplished through
>various XSL stylesheets.  Things don't get much more strait forward.

Can sombody(s) do a quick compare and contrast of rpkg and rubynet?
Sounds like rubynet has more requirements (XML parser, etc.) which is a 
bit worrisome since we would like whatever packaging system to work 'out 
of the box' (though I think I've heard that REXML will be included in 1.8, 
did I hear correctly?)


>
>> 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.
>
>Hrm, how about rsync, FTP, or HTTP mirroring?  

>I'm actually really
>keen on CVSup 

What's CVSup?

>and would like to open up the rubynet CVS repository for
>public access so that folks can signup for accounts.  If there are
>folks that are interested in this, I will gladly hand them keys to the
>servers, the rubynet repo, and do whatever possible to help accommodate
>getting this off the ground.  If we do that, then we could distribute
>rubynet modules via XML and have them compiled locally on mirroring
>servers.  CVSup is extremely efficient in terms of sending diff's and
>syncing CVS repo's, more so than rsync.  If you have questions, please
>send email to devel@rubynet.org.
>

Phil