> On May 26, 2020, at 21:36, Robert Postill <robert.post...@gmail.com> wrote: > > One thing that troubled me was that the tests seemed to be dependant on the > package already being installed.
I think this is very common within the Racket ecosystem. I would guess that very few packages are consciously designed to be “relocatable” in the way you describe. > I've always considered the point at which a package gets transferred into the > domain of raco pkg's management to be a pivotal moment. It has this implied > social contract that if I'm mixing with code into a system area managed by > the language, the package needs to be trustworthy. Testing *after* installing > seems a bit like I'm putting the cart before the horse? I cannot speak to the cultural norms of the Ruby community, as I am not terribly familiar with them, but I will admit that I find this mentality somewhat curious. In Racket, “installing” a package doesn’t affect very much beyond module path resolution. Running a package’s tests can do all the same things—install a keylogger, steal your private key, encrypt your hard drive—whether it is installed or not. Installation is also not very permanent; it’s very easy to undo or change. So from my perspective, going out of your way to download package code and run it without officially installing it via `raco pkg` seems like a mostly pointless exercise. You’re basically doing all the same things—downloading it, unpacking it to a particular location on your computer, and giving it all the privileges of the user you run it as—just manually, rather than letting raco do the work for you. It is entirely possible that there is some additional distinction or utility I am not seeing, but my first instinct is to recommend that you just install the package. You can always uninstall it. Alexis -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Racket Users" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to racket-users+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/racket-users/2134D9EC-8870-4181-9BEF-2BEC6971ADEC%40gmail.com.
