Re: Triumvirates

[Javier Guerra Giraldez <javier@...>]

On Wed, Oct 26, 2011 at 1:17 PM, Jimmie Houchin <jlhouchin@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Requiring installation and forcing a centralized module system (e.g. by
>> only releasing modules that way) could cause significant problems to some of
>> us.
>>
> Understood. But how is this a problem?

it's not as long as it's not required.

case in point: there are some Lua packages with an INSTALL.txt file
with only "use luarocks".  great for maybe 60%-80% of users, useless
for many others.  usually, there's nothing in that package that needs
LuaRocks, but without knowing how is it supposed to be installed (or
even what are its requirements!), it becomes an obstacle.

much better would be "use LuaRocks, or be sure to have packages foobar
and bizbang available"

likewise, if some Lua packaging (distro?) becomes widely popular, and
regarded as a common standard; it becomes a platform, and some people
will create packages that need 'common' packages without specifying
(or knowing!) which ones are really required.

maybe a tracing tool that registers which packages are loaded would be
some help in documenting dependencies...

-- 
Javier