[plt-scheme] miscaellanous packaging problems with plt-scheme

On Sep 15, Guillaume Rousse wrote:
> Eli Barzilay wrote:
> > Your separation between developers and used will always lead
> > problems when you're dealing with a package that is intended for
> > users who are themselves programmers.  What activities do you
> > expect such users to do?
> basically, people using existing features, such as students
> practising scheme exercices, versus people extending drscheme
> itself. I may be wrong however.

This distinction can be easily blurred.  The most obvious example is
any package that involves C code: these are often distributed in
source form, and when users install them mzc is used to eventually
invoke GCC that will require include files etc.  Your layout will
either result in more headaches for people who will want to distribute
such packages, or, more likely, everyone will install the `devel'
package too.

The bottom line is something that was said (IIRC) on this thread
before -- having some `plt-devel' package doesn't make sense in the
same way that `gcc-devel' doesn't.  (Even more: C lacks any form of
sane introspection, so you can imagine some `gcc-devel' for creating
new front/back-ends etc, but these don't make sense for Scheme.)

-- 
          ((lambda (x) (x x)) (lambda (x) (x x)))          Eli Barzilay:
                  http://www.barzilay.org/                 Maze is Life!