From: Tim Hunter <cyclists@...>
Date: 2003-04-08T01:49:02+09:00
Subject: Re: Call for standardised package installation procedure

On 6 Apr 2003 01:56:23 -0800, google@tompayne.org (Tom Payne) wrote:

>I'm helping maintain Ruby and Ruby packages in Gentoo Linux.
>
>Currently, different packages have different installation procedures.
>For example, some use the extconf mechanism, some use Minero Aoki's
>setup.rb, and others roll their own.
>
>It would make my job a lot easier if just one were chosen, and perhaps
>made part of the standard Ruby distribution. A standard installation
>procedure would make it much quicker for me to add packages, and
>reduce everyone's reading of READMEs.
>
>Personally, I vote for Minero Aoki's setup.rb:
>  http://i.loveruby.net/en/setup.html
>
>Ideally I would like it to be a _requirement_ for all packages in the
>RAA to support the standard installation procedure (whatever that
>turns out to be).
>
>Comments? Flames?
>
>Tom

I 100% agree, and I am using install.rb for RMagick, but I don't think
it's quite full-featured enough for the needs of C extensions in
general. I've had to add an autoconf-generated configure script step
to handle configuration details that install.rb doesn't handle (or
that I am insufficiently clever to make install.rb handle :-),
including pre-processing extconf.rb and metaconfig. This configure
script gives me no end of trouble and I'd love to ditch it for a
Ruby-based solution. Of course, from autoconf I get the benefit of a
bazillion person-years of experience in building portable
applications.

Also, as another follow-up has mentioned, install.rb needs to generate
an 'uninstall' target.