Since I promised the folks in #squeak I would start this thread...

It's been my observation for quite a while that Squeak is missing
the equivalent of what Perl has in the CPAN.

First, let me describe the CPAN:

Anyone can get a CPAN ID for free.  Once they have a CPAN ID, they upload
packages to a central server, which are then indexed and replicated to 500+
places worldwide, usually within an hour.

A package has a name and a version number.  Version numbers are floating point
numbers, with "larger = better".  If the version number contains an
underscore, it's considered "better, but only beta" and not automatically
offered as an upgrade (see below).

In general, package names are *not* registered, meaning that if I upload
Foo-3.4, and you upload Foo-3.5, users around the world will be asked if they
want to upgrade my package with yours.  By default, this allows cooperating
team members to upgrade new releases of a cooperative project, as long as they
work together on the version numbers.  This also allows the
long-gone-developer's code to be updated in-absentia.  Although this has the
possibility for abuse, in the 15 years of the CPAN it has only been abused a
few times, and the CPAN gods can quickly remedy the situation.

For more managed care, a package name or prefix can be *registered*, which
means only a small group of individuals can upload things in that prefix.
Again, this is rare, but solves the wildcard issue.  If a package is
abandoned, the CPAN gods can transfer the registration or deregister it.

Any CPAN package can declare that it is dependent on another CPAN package, or
even particular versions of core-installed packages.  The CPAN installer can
be told to automatically or manually install all dependencies (or even ignore
them, but that's rarely wise).

Speaking of which, the core Perl distro has had a CPAN installer for many
years (CPAN.pm), and even a newer one (CPANPLUS.pm) has been included in
recent releases.  As long as the CPAN index can be read, and the packages
downloaded, anyone can write additional CPAN installers too, but they probably
won't go into the core.

As a result of the above rules:

* CPAN installation is easy
* CPAN publishing is easy
* The CPAN is vital and thriving - see search.cpan.org/recent

Notice about 50 uploads a *day*.  And everything *works* in an
automated way, except for the "CPAN gods" exceptions listed above.

Now.  Squeak has been around only half as long as Perl.  But that's about
how long Perl was around before we came up with the CPAN, so it's about
time Squeak had the same thing, I think.

Here's what I know (and I could be wrong):

Squeakmap - *everything* is "registered", so cooperation is hard
Squeaksource - no index is made, so you have to find things yourself
Universes - like Squeakmap
Sake/Packages - single point of update, making publishing hard

And except for Squeakmap, there's none of these that have been in all of the
recent Squeak releases for installation, so we have a bootstrapping problem.
Even installing Universes is hard from Squeakmap. :)

And all of these systems are missing dependency and automatic upgrade
management.

Can we discuss something like the CPAN for Squeak?

-- 
Randal L. Schwartz - Stonehenge Consulting Services, Inc. - +1 503 777 0095
<merlyn at stonehenge.com> <URL:http://www.stonehenge.com/merlyn/>
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