[squeak-dev] Re: Packages, Packages, Packages
Andreas Raab
andreas.raab at gmx.de
Sat Dec 12 23:29:16 UTC 2009
Igor Stasenko wrote:
> Im not opposed to using existing tools. I just wanted to point out
> that simpler is better.
> If a simple installer script works in 99% of cases for me, then why i
> need to care about using something else?
You're confusing an installation script with a package management
system. A package *includes* an installation script; but it also
includes dependency and other information that is utilized by the
package management system. In unix terms, the former is the makefile,
the latter is the rpm with its spec file. You're saying you don't need
an rpm and in many cases you're right. But in many other cases you're not.
The biggest issue with Metacello I'm seeing so far is that it muddles
the installation script with dependency management and metadata. Very
troublesome because it means you can't even *look* at a Metacello
configuration from Squeak 3.8 or ealier. Extremely disturbing
considering that in order to do dependency analysis one must run
untrusted code to obtain the dependencies (so forget about server-side
dependency analysis). And unfortunate because it means that Metacello
has hardwired assumptions about its interactions with the rest of the
environment (Gofer, OB etc) making it implausible to replace its
underpinnings with something much simpler like Installer. To be honest,
Metacello has been somewhat of a disappointment so far.
Cheers,
- andreas
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