[plt-scheme] package management thoughts

Jacob Matthews <jacobm at cs.uchicago.edu> wrote:
> We are talking about the real require. The reason is that the backend that
> handles (require (cspan ...)) will know only to go out to the network when
> necessary and we'll get all the benefits of explicitly getting modules

Another case: What if I haven't realised that one of the many files in a
package requires something from the archive and it only goes out to get
it when I run it as a user?  I probably wanted that installed system-wide,
not individual copies for all users who run it.

There are many other situations like that.  I beg you to disable the
automatic downloading by default, probably by giving a nice error that
tells them what they need to do.  Otherwise, it will make PLT a thorn
in the sysadmin's side.  I don't think that's what we want.

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