ruby_select plan, rubygem: dependency operator

[Rainer Müller]

Bryan Blackburn wrote:
> What would be nice is some automatic wrapper for all the various extensions
> to languages (ruby, perl, python, etc) where you just say "I need xyz from
> CPAN/gem" and port can handle it, and hence use it for dependencies.  Of course,
> base has no support for such hence the need to wrap such things in full-blown
> ports, otherwise how do we know what is installed and and what version?  It
> would still run the install through the proper tool, but also keep track of
> what is installed so it can be managed (and easily upgraded, activated,
> etc), but wouldn't need to be a complete port.  Instead it could be some
> form of listing in a table someplace, for any extensions which are easily
> installed.

Such cpan: or rubygem: dependencies would cause some problems. If there
is no port for a language module, I would have to use cpan or gem to
install it. This is probably acceptable for developers, but quite
complicated for users.

And in the ongoing effort to provide binaries, it would probably cause
problems to make binary archives of these dependencies as no Portfiles
exist.

So if we are going to do something like this, we do not only need it for
dependencies, but also a new way to refer to such a "port" from the
command line.

How would we specify additional build options or customizations to fit
better into MacPorts? Probably only using a port. So if this is going to
be implemented, it should still always check if a port of that name
exists and prefer that.

Rainer