[plt-scheme] Why is Planet better than PLT archives?

Matt Jadud wrote:

> I guess that's the question, really.

PLaneT is a distribution system; it uses PLT archives. So really the 
question is "Why is distributing my package with PLaneT better than just 
putting it on my web page?" The answer to which is, (a) PLaneT is 
centralized (http://planet.plt-scheme.org) so your package gets exposed 
more widely and (b) Mz/DrScheme automatically download appropriate 
packages in response to the (require (planet ...)) form if they're not 
already available on the local machine. That means that in writing 
programs that you intend to distribute to other people, you can just 
refer to the PLaneT packages you want and have  confidence that whoever 
uses your program will automatically get the additional libraries they 
need if they don't already have them.

Basically, before PLaneT, if you were writing a program for others to 
use, you had to weigh the advantage of using a third-party library 
against the pain of having to make others install it manually. PLaneT 
makes you not have to do that anymore.

-jacob