Re: summer of code project: cpan

[Peter Brett <peter@peter-b.co.uk>]

Andy Wingo <wingo@pobox.com> writes:

> Now that GNU is in the Google SoC, I'd like to propose again a CPAN for
> Guile.  (It does needs a proper name, but that name doesn't have to
> correspond to the name of the command-line utility; see my other mail
> about "guido".)
>
> The proposal would be to start from dorodango, and to use stowfs
> locally.  We keep (largely) the dorodango network interfaces, but the
> implementation exists in a Guile-specific project, with a non-dorodango
> name (so as not to conflict with Andreas's more portable project).
>
> Locally it uses something like stowfs and $XDG_DATA_DIRS, as noted in
> the previous SoC thread.
>
> The project can be developed outside of Guile initially, just
> integrating by defining "guido" commands.  If everything works it can be
> integrated within Guile itself.

I urge caution. This sounds suspiciously similar to Ruby "gems", which
have worked okay for developers but have caused massive problems for
system administrators, end users and distributions.

This article on LWN is a good read (although it contains some unrelated
criticism of other aspects of Ruby development).

http://lwn.net/Articles/423732/

Regards,

                             Peter

-- 
Peter Brett <peter@peter-b.co.uk>
Remote Sensing Research Group
Surrey Space Centre