From: Gavin Sinclair <gsinclair@...>
Date: 2003-01-23T22:29:19+09:00
Subject: Re: Can we attack the 'not enough libraries' thing straight on?

On Thursday, January 23, 2003, 1:42:34 PM, ahoward wrote:

> [Comparing to C++ boost system]
>   * 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...

Good ideas.  It's great to have a repository that anybody can
contribute to, and we do need to be able know which ones are well
implemented and supported.  I wish someone who has used a lot of
packages (i.e. not me) would write a summary of packages they think
are ready for the big time.  Also along these lines, I believe the RAA
should mandate a standard for versioning.  Everything should be
versioned x.y.z, with perhaps some allowance for alpha, beta,
whatever.  Version numbers based on dates or descriptions are not
particularly informative.

About "standard docs", I think this is the way forward:
 - packages have a doc directory
 - this gets installed along with the package so it ends up in
   something like
          site_ruby/1.6/froboz/doc/package.info
                                  /index.html
                                 
 - it can therefore be determined which packages have been installed
   and have documentation installed

This allows different programs to programatically access all package
documentation.  The particular program I have in mind might be called
'rdb' (for Ruby Documentation Browser) and would do the following:
  - build a list of all installed package doco (using package.info for
    description etc.)
  - generate an HTML page containing links to all available package
    doco (the index.html files, which represent RDoc output and
    contain the README etc. as well as the API doc)
  - open a browser to that page

There you have it.  One command to access all of your available
package documentation.  Of course it can take an argument so you can
access a particular package doco easily.

I mention this in this thread because I have a suspicion that Ruby's
reputation for a lack of libraries is superficial.  There are a lot of
libraries; we just don't always access them very well.  Setting some
standards and easing access are easy things to do, and they can only
encourage effort in creating more high-quality libraries, and higher
quality documentation for those libraries.

One technical nit: not all libraries conform to the pattern whereby
they install in a single directory.

Anyway, things like package management require community evolution.
Judging by the number of RAA entries, the Engligh-speaking Ruby
community has evolved to the point where some standards ought to be
enforced to help us make sense of it all.

Gavin