Raphael, Thanks for the feedback.However I have to say that Debian as a whole cannot have it both ways. Either ftp-master lifts the restriction on small modules or there has to be decent support for "components". I have started work on this (http://github.com/periapt/pkg-components/blob/master/TODO) though I have some way to go. (And it is not my highest priority).
Catalyst is not actually the best example in some ways of the utter horribleness of bundles. It is actually a coherent set of modules even if they are not distributed that way on CPAN. I prefer CGI::Application and the current package structure there is much worse. Development/Debugging tools that one might reasonably want to keep off a production machine are mixed in with core modules. In another of the bundles modules are grouped together that are not even necessarily compatible. For example no one is going to use both "AnyTemplate" and "TT". So yes if the ftp-master's restriction is
going to be lifted then fine. The whole business of bundles can die.However I do not seriously believe that will happen. And if you actually (clothes peg tightly fastened onto nose) look into these modules and try to maintain one it gets worse. Having the tools in Debian but not officially encouraged might be a workable compromise if it comes to it.
Raphael Hertzog wrote:
On Thu, 09 Sep 2010, Nicholas Bamber wrote:I have recently looked into a number of bundle packages. All of them have different implementations of the debian/rules although the ones I looked at had clearly once had a common parent. Hence I have been kept awake at night thinking how this situation might be improved.In the article, I mentionned that bundling unrelated software is not a good idea in general (mainly because there's no common software version to use). So I think that we should not create any infrastructure to make it even easier to create those bundles. Cheers,
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