Packaging GNU Smalltalk .star archives

Hello,

I'm about to upload gst 2.95f packages to Debian experimental. But I'm
not sure how to package .star archives yet.

I don't think it makes sense to put every .star archive in its own
Debian package. At the very least .star archives depending on external
libraries should go in a separate package, so that packages containing
those external libraries are pulled only when needed.

That would give something like:
 * gnu-smalltalk-gtk for GTK.star, BloxGTK.star and gst-gtk.so
 * gnu-smalltalk-tk for BloxTK.star and blox-tk.so
 * gnu-smalltalk-ncurses for NCurses.star
 * gnu-smalltalk-gdbm for GDBM.star and gdbm.so
 * gnu-smalltalk-postgresql for DBD-PostgreSQL.star
 * gnu-smalltalk-mysql for DBD-MySQL.star
 * gnu-smalltalk-zlib?

There are some subtles differences here on how those packages would be
handled, because for instance GTK.star is architecture dependent[1],
while usually .star files are not. And some .star files directly load
external libraries, e.g. NCurses.star loads libncurses.so and
DBD-PostgreSQL.star loads libpq.so[2]. Besides, we'll need to be
carefull to make sure package.xml dependencies are captured in Debian
packages[4].

I don't know whether some other .star packages should have their own
Debian package, e.g. glorp, sunit.

To compare with Debian Java packages of libraries using native code[3]:
native code is stored in an extra package, so that for example
libwhatever-java package depends on libwhatever-jni. For .star packages
that rely on an internal library (i.e. not NCurses.star nor
DBD-PostgreSQL.star) that might be the way to go.

What's your opinion on this?

Thanks,

Thomas

[1] no problem with multiarch anymore: .star files are searched for
    in the smalltalk image dir too
[2] self note: 'replace this with sonames'
[3] see for example http://packages.debian.org/sid/libglib-java
[4] maybe we'll need to write a debhelper program for this




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> I don't think it makes sense to put every .star archive in its own
> Debian package. At the very least .star archives depending on external
> libraries should go in a separate package, so that packages containing
> those external libraries are pulled only when needed.

Yes, probably.  The others can go in gnu-smalltalk-common.

> That would give something like:
>  * gnu-smalltalk-gtk for GTK.star, BloxGTK.star and gst-gtk.so
>  * gnu-smalltalk-tk for BloxTK.star and blox-tk.so
>  * gnu-smalltalk-ncurses for NCurses.star
>  * gnu-smalltalk-gdbm for GDBM.star and gdbm.so
>  * gnu-smalltalk-postgresql for DBD-PostgreSQL.star
>  * gnu-smalltalk-mysql for DBD-MySQL.star

This one can go in the main distribution because it does not depend on
libmysqlclient.

>  * gnu-smalltalk-zlib?

> Besides, we'll need to be
> carefull to make sure package.xml dependencies are captured in Debian
> packages[4].

Yes.

> I don't know whether some other .star packages should have their own
> Debian package, e.g. glorp, sunit.

No, I don't think so.  They can just go in gnu-smalltalk-common.

> [1] no problem with multiarch anymore: .star files are searched for
>     in the smalltalk image dir too

Yes, that's good because you don't have anymore problems with
gnu-smalltalk-common including a package that is architecture dependent.

Maybe it would it be better to name the packages, for example,
libgtk2-gnu-smalltalk, libtk8.4-gnu-smalltalk, libncurses5-gnu-smalltalk
(or maybe even using -gst as a suffix)?  I don't know, I just got it
from your example of libglib-java.

Paolo



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Hello Paolo,

thanks a lot for your input.

On Fri, Nov 23, 2007 at 10:12:44AM +0100, Paolo Bonzini wrote:
> > * gnu-smalltalk-mysql for DBD-MySQL.star
>
> This one can go in the main distribution because it does not depend on
> libmysqlclient.

Indeed.

> Maybe it would it be better to name the packages, for example,
> libgtk2-gnu-smalltalk, libtk8.4-gnu-smalltalk, libncurses5-gnu-smalltalk
> (or maybe even using -gst as a suffix)?  I don't know, I just got it
> from your example of libglib-java.

There are two schools here it seems[1]:
 * $language-$libbindings, e.g. python
 * $libbindings-$language, e.g. perl, ruby

I guess we'll have to pick one and stick to it.

Thomas

[1] http://people.debian.org/~terpstra/message/20071123.132507.2afe4060.en.html


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I prefer the latter.

Thanks!  I'll delay 3.0 (which is not ready, anyway) to after you ironed
out Debian packaging problems.

Paolo


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