gem, pip et al vs. pkg

[Torsten Zuehlsdorff]

On 08.06.2016 02:53, Kurt Jaeger wrote:
> Hi!
>
>> The ports tree has thousands of entries, which are simply thin wrappers
>> around Ruby's gem or Perl's and/or Python's pip.
>
> Thanks again for asking the right questions. Please add go to that
> list 8-}
>
>> Why do we need them? Obviously, it is primarily
>> for other ports to be able to depend on them. But why can't we satisfy
>> this need without creating a port for each such little package?
>
> Because right now the mechanism we use is the only one we have.
>
>> If a port declares:
>>
>>     RUN_DEPENDS= /foo/:gem//bar/[:/version/]
>>
>> why can't the /bar/-gem (with the latest or specified version) be
>> automatically installed -- and/or registered as a dependency -- without
>> there being a dedicated port for it?
>
> We would need to mirror the language-specific dependency tracking
> in the ports system. While doable, it's definitly non-trivial.

Also it is not always language specific. Some rubygems for example 
requires other non-ruby software to be installed. This is handled by the 
ports very good - but if there is no such requirement a port is 
overhead. Also gems allow/need sometime specific versions - which is 
hard to track and keep right in the ports tree.

Greetings,
Torsten