Re: [boost] C++ C?AN

From: Aristid Breitkreuz (aribrei_at_[hidden])
Date: 2005-10-15 06:09:21

Andreas Pokorny <andreas.pokorny <at> gmx.de> writes:

> 
> Hi, 
> Some weeks ago someone metioned that we need a C++ variant of
> CPAN or CTAN. The idea is really great.
Yes!

> But I have no clue where
> we would start. How should that service look like, and work internally?
We need a comfortable web frontend *g*.

> I think we need some identifcation service for authors, maybe some
> access control on the packages stored in the serivce. The client frontend 
> will need something to select mirrors, track dependencies to other packages.
Let me note that using BitTorrent for that would reduce the cost of such a 
system.

> An auto build, intstall and test feature would be nice too. 
But pretty hard.

> As Martin Wille just mentioned, something with some of these features 
> already exists. Gentoos portage [2], written in python handles,
> dependencies, integrates a mirror selector, automatically build installs
> and uinstalls packages fetched as source code. The package scripts are 
> shared using rsync[3]. The package source files are automatically 
> distributed into their mirror system. The only missing thing is the 
> author identification and access control part. Gentoo "works" with 
> an indirect system, requiring authors to provide scripts, or users to beg 
> for packages in their bugzilla system. 
Well, surely ideas can be stolen from Portage.

> Another interesting system could be provided by monotone[4], a very nice
> distributed version control system. We could use monotone to replace 
> rsync, in the suggestion above. Monotone provides a secure system to 
> get the build scripts anonymously, and allows identifying authors. The 
> distributive character of monotone allows very intersting use cases, in 
> which authors are able to update and provide new versions of their 
> software. 
I do not think monotone is what we need here. The problem is that you cannot
checkout from a monotone server without downloading all prior versions. Monotone
is really made for distributed development and not for such services.

> Regards
> Andreas Pokorny
Sincerely, too,
Aristid Breitkreuz
> 
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