Re: Looking for ideas for merging a micro package...
tony mancill <tmancill@debian.org> writes:
> Thank you for pointing this out. I just recently uploaded a script,
> splitpatch, that I argued should be accepted as-is (i.e. as a "micro
> package") because of the dependency on ruby.
> Given that ruby is becoming more popular for scripting, what do folks
> think about a catch-all package for ruby scripts? I don't have a good
> feel for what the right trade-off is between:
> * reducing load on the archive by consolidating these tiny packages
> * making good use of maintainer's time, the implication being that
> coordinating multiple (otherwise unrelated?) ruby scripts is going to be
> more of a time commitment for the maintainer(s)
> and
> * making it easy (or even possible) for users to find these scripts when
> the package name doesn't match upstream
I think it makes a ton of sense to have several of these catch-all
packages split by implementation language. The biggest advantage is to
the maintenance of the catch-all package; most of us only consider
ourselves highly experienced in, or comfortable in, one or two languages,
and therefore it's harder to find maintainers who are comfortable with
packages that mix a bunch of languages. It's also helpful to be tied in
to the maintenance community for that language to weigh things like good
modules to rely on or not rely on, how burdensome dependencies are, etc.
There's also a minor advantage for the user who may not want to introduce
a whole new interpreter to systems that are tight on space or that need to
be kept simple.
A moreutils-ruby (or some similar name) seems like a great idea to me.
I would check with Joey first, though, just in case he disagrees with that
reasoning and would prefer to include the scripts directly in moreutils.
(splitpatch might make more sense in devscripts, but devscripts I think
has the same set of constraints, albeit with different base languages.
Python and Perl at the moment, I think.)
--
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
Reply to: