[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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