John Johnson <jj5412 / earthlink.net> wrote in message news:<1049655145.1847.10.camel / hppav.home.net>...
> ruby -rcran -e shell
> cran> install foofoo
>   Retrieving foofoo...
>   foofoo requires bitbang
>   foofoo requires barbar
>   barbar requires snickdorfer
>   foofoo requires quantos 1.2.3 currently you have 1.2.2, updating
>   blantic 2.0.4 is not compatible with quantos 1.2.3, updating to 2.1.3
>   installing...
>   finished

As I package maintainer I don't want this (although I have no problem
with others using this facility). I want:

1. consistent installation procedure
2. ability to install to a 'fake' directory, e.g.
     make DESTDIR=/somewhere/random install
   this is so I can then build a package with the files that would be
installed.

(1) stops me having to treat every package as a special case
(2) is more likely to exist (and work properly) if everyone uses the
same installation script.

Dependencies are [should be] handled by the package management system.
John, your wish has already come true on Gentoo and Debian systems :-)

Regards,

Tom