Re: Upgrading without central packaging

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From: Matt McLeod
Subject: Re: Upgrading without central packaging
Date: 17:27 on 23 Apr 2005
Michael G Schwern wrote:
> Modules and dependencies suck less.  If nothing else at least you only
> have to install them once, its automatable and the bugs are in one place.

This does rather assume that you've got lots of dependency-handling
cruft in place, though.  Which, at work, we do not have -- we're a
combined Solaris/Tru64 shop with our own custom packaging stuff
(don't ask), which means that every damned module some random bit
of Perl requires has to be packaged by hand.  No CPAN.pm.

The result is that whenever I need some bit of functionality from
a module we don't already have installed, I have to ask myself
whether it's worth the hassle of packaging it (and all its dependencies)
to avoid writing some stuff of my own.  Works out around a 50:50 split.

As it happens I've got plenty of hate for our local packaging system
(it has no concept of dependencies, and bootstrapping a new host is
a real pain in the arse) too, but I've spent too many years working
in not-Linux shops to buy into the huge tangle of dependencies in a
typical Perl application being a good thing.

Of course, it's even worse when it's some random small X11 GUI thing
you want to play with and it drags in all of fucking Gnome.

Matt 

There's stuff above here

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