From: ahoward <ahoward@...>
Date: 2003-01-23T11:42:34+09:00
Subject: Re: Can we attack the 'not enough libraries' thing straight on?

On Thu, 23 Jan 2003, Joey Gibson wrote:

<snip>
> IOW, there may be 10 times more libraries available for Perl and Python, but
> how many of them do I actualy need?
<snip>

a very good point.  just today i had to write a perl script and was
overwhelmed in modules and add-ons - many of which simply weren't needed.  one
idea i've had is the idea of 'candidate libraries' : anyone who's worked with
the c++ boost libraries knows what i'm talking about, but here's a short and
sweet explanation

  * libraries wishing to become part of the ruby standard library should
    follow some sort of standards (naming being one of them) and perhaps fit
    into some overall package management system (like the cpan shell).  they
    should install in standard places, have standard docs (in fact it'd be
    great if there were a site_ruby/doc directory doccumenting every thing
    installed on your system), etc.

  * other modules can do what they please

this is one idea CPAN lacks - a central set of standards which modules must
conform to (unit testing for modules?) and a way to separte the really good
modules from all the chatter and useless crap...

just some some thoughts...

-a


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