[racket-dev] proposal for moving to packages

On Mon, May 20 2013, Matthew Flatt wrote:

[...]

> Some drawbacks to omitting source are immediately apparent:
>
>  - Users will be less able to make source changes on their systems to
>    help us debug.
>
>    Having the binary form of a package installed does not preclude
>    "upgrading" to a source package. So, we could ask a user to use the
>    package manager to install the source form of, say, the "drracket"
>    package, and then try out a change. In that way, users can still
>    help, but it will be less convenient.
>
>  - Users will be less able to read installed code as examples.
>
>    Our source code is now easily available via the web interfaces at
>    http://git.racket-lang.org/ and GitHub, so users can always look
>    there, instead.

FWIW (and i know it's not much, but anyway), this will be a big loss for
Geiser users, who right know can jump to any core function source with a
single keystroke and without leaving the editor.  IME, there's a huge
difference between that and having to switch to a web browser to find
it, both when learning or programming new applications.

Here's hope that down the line there'll be binary+source packages that
end users can install with the same ease as today.

Cheers,
jao
-- 
Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be.