[plt-scheme] package management issues

To elaborate, a few usage scenarios for a portable network package
system (pretend "%" is the OS command shell prompt):

    % pltnet install foolib
    Updating index from: http://pltnet.plt-scheme.org/200/
    Updating index from: http://pltnet.intranet.mycompany.foo/
    Package foolib depends on uninstalled: sxpath htmlprag
    Package sxpath depends on uninstalled: ssax
    Will INSTALL: htmlprag ssax sxpath
    OK? yes
    Downloading...
    Installing...

    % pltnet upgrade
    Updating index from: http://pltnet.plt-scheme.org/200/
    Updating index from: http://pltnet.intranet.mycompany.foo/
    Cannot upgrade: ssax (sxpath 2.345 requires 1.0 <= ssax < 2.0)
    Will UPGRADE: foolib (1.0 -> 1.1)
    OK? yes
    Downloading...
    Upgrading...

    % pltnet remove htmlprag
    Package foolib depends on: htmlprag
    Will REMOVE: foolib htmlprag
    OK? yes
    Removing...

With apologies to Debian "apt-get" and "dpkg".

There could also be a GUI interface within DrScheme.

Note that for the sake of portability, this bypasses the host platform's
native package system, but it will only install files under the
"collects" tree, so that should be OK.

One drawback to portability is that the dependencies that, say,
SrPersist has on an ODBC library and SGL has on OpenGL libraries are not
managed, but that's an acceptable tradeoff for my purposes.  Of course,
it might later turn out that these PLT packages can be programmatically
transformed into, say, Debian packages, but that's not a top priority
for me.

-- 
                                             http://www.neilvandyke.org/