Message-ID: <4186917E.3030209@melon.dk>
Date: Mon, 01 Nov 2004 20:41:50 +0100
From: Jacob Gorm Hansen <jacob@melon.dk>
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To: Dustin Sallings <dustin@spy.net>
Subject: Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Re: community spirit
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Dustin Sallings wrote:
> 
> On Nov 1, 2004, at 10:06, Jacob Gorm Hansen wrote:
> 
>> -- which is useless unless one chooses to install fancywrapper, with 
>> it's 1000+ files of dependencies.
> 
> 
>     I think it's a little misleading to represent python as ``1000+ 
> files of dependencies''  It is, at best, one dependency, and I'd imagine 
> it'd be very common to be installed on any system being used for 
> development.

But you are still likely to run into an old system with a non-recent 
version of python, and for which you have no root-access. I like python 
for prototyping and scripting, but I also like being able to checkout my 
code tree on _any_ machine, without having to talk the admin into 
installing or upgrading, or spending my entire disk-quota on a 
language-runtime and its supporting libraries.

The problem with apt-get and similar easy-to-use tools is that 
programmers just specifify all sorts of dependencies, instead of putting 
in a tiny extra effort to make their software stand alone. Look at how 
much easier installing software is on Windows versus on Linux.

>> [...] I am running Ubuntu here
> 
>     Is it possible to run Ubuntu without python?

Probably not, but I wish it was. Relying on scripting languages (other 
than /bin/sh) for a production system is like relying on duct tape for 
keeping your car running. I just meant to say that in general I like 
what the Canonical people are doing.

>     I agree with most of what you said, and I agree that it just feels 
> wrong to have to install a wrapper to use a tool because the base tool 
> doesn't cover some common cases, but the problem is not so much the list 
> of dependencies.  The dependencies I had for installing tla in the first 
> place were much larger than any wrapper I've used to date.

As I recall, tla bundles everything it needs, and just produces a single 
executable (I usually install just by dropping 'tla' in my ~/bin).

Jacob


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