[racket-dev] Packaging

Jay -

   1. Thanks for having this out - this is a great start and a very
   important problem to solve

   2. Is it correct that *heap* maps to the account name in planet?  Such as
   jaymccarthy, schematics, or bzlib?

   There is always tension between the naming by capability or author in
   package systems.  Do we have a preference one way or another?

   3. For all the modules that are currently in core, it might make sense to
   simply lump them under a *core* heap to simplify the reorganization, but
   it's clear that not all packages are strictly required, so it would
   eventually be great to separate them out:

   1. absolute core (scheme & racket language, no GUI)
      2. GUI
      3. other languages
      4. etc

      4. Agreed that the installation/compilation takes way too long.  Would
   like the ability to turn off doc installation - I believe docs needs to be
   online, and easily updated, i.e. wiki format

   5. Another thing to improve the time of installation is to have
   pre-compiled binaries.  If this is a possibility, then perhaps binary-only
   package should also be considered.  That might not be the open source ideal,
   but can increase more adoption

   6. Planet packages also have problems with dependency breakage when the
   dependency is a development link.  So that will need to be addressed

   7. It's hard to understand the Glue section - are you suggesting having
   the URL embedded into the require spec?  I hope I am reading it incorrectly,
   as such hardcoding should be avoided.

   8. The Linux repo (such as apt or yum) should be the preferred approach
   here - having a repo definition that defines where to search for packages.
    Such approach allows for having planet mirrors and private repos


The above are what I can think of for now.  Cheers.
yc

On Fri, Feb 18, 2011 at 1:21 PM, Jay McCarthy <jay.mccarthy at gmail.com>wrote:

> You may recall from the meeting over the summer that I promised a
> packaging Christmas present to Racket. I'm over a month late, but here
> it is:
>
> http://faculty.cs.byu.edu/~jay/tmp/pkgs/spec.html
>
> I lay out some goals for the new packaging system and make a concrete
> proposal.
>
> Please share your feedback so I can direct my efforts better.
>
> Jay
>
>
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