From: Massimiliano Mirra <bard@...>
Date: 2003-01-25T07:30:03+09:00
Subject: Re: Can we attack the 'not enough libraries' thing straight on?

Tim Bates <tim@bates.id.au> writes:

> > 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.

rpkg was meant to be just that and went as far as handlig dependencies
and compiling on the fly.  Unfortunately some months ago I got busy
with another job and at about the same time the new RAA and
raa-install were announced, interest in it declined somewhat and I
felt less of in a hurry to complete it.

(Actually, in the last week two persons contacted me because they
couldn't access it anymore on allruby.com, so maybe I wasn't totally
right.)


Massimiliano