From: Tim Bates <tim@...>
Date: 2003-01-23T11:51:18+09:00
Subject: Re: Can we attack the 'not enough libraries' thing straight on?

On Thu, 23 Jan 2003 01:12 pm, ahoward wrote:
> 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...

Debian GNU/Linux gets this just right, IMHO. They have a policy that packages 
wishing to be placed on their central set of package mirrors must adhere to, 
a proper dependency system, mirroring of packages so they're always available 
and not dependant on the author's personal server/ISP (one of my pet hates 
about RAA), command-line and curses tools for installing/removing/viewing 
packages and their dependancies, policies concerning the quality, quantity 
and location of documentation, etc... This packaging system is the one and 
only reason I use Debian over any other Linux distribution. It would take a 
significant amount of effort to get such a beast running for Ruby, but once 
done I think the benefits would be phenomenal.

Tim Bates
-- 
tim@bates.id.au