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I don't use it, so I don't know, but I'm just wondering, why is it necessary to use gcc to use libsass? Isn't there a PPA for it? Would a PPA be the proper wa

I don't use it, so I don't know, but I'm just wondering, why is it necessary to use gcc to use libsass? Isn't there a PPA for it? Would a PPA be the proper way to distrib what sounds like a really valuable program? Thank you.

lotyrin 11y ago
System level package management falls quite short of what you want for applications in a lot of ways still. Different apps will want to specify and build against extremely specific and different versions of their dependencies, and developers will want to be able to change these versions without lots of organizational coordination between owners of dev/CI/stage/production environments. Currently, this is solved by things like npm/bower/bundler/composer/maven/etc. etc. The code repository describes all the dependencies and they get installed just for that app, testing and deployment process simply incorporate the app's packaging tools. However, for any dependencies which use native extensions, you tend to need to be able to compile those - across all your environments - which means having working toolchain everywhere. Not that this is strange or hard in my opinion, but it seems to discourage people somehow.
xrstf 11y ago
I'm on Windows and I don't want to install Visual Studio just because of libsass...
- pyre 11y ago
  Should the people that wrote libsass have decided whether or not to write it in C based on whether or not you would have to install Visual Studio to get it working on Windows? As a C library, it allows linking from several different languages, so maybe their motivations were getting a non-Ruby Sass implementation that could be used in whatever language you need it in. Maybe then the people that wrote the JS to link against the C library are the people that burdened you with this hardship then? Should every person that wants to use libsass from JavaScript be deterred against creating that JS library linking against libsass just because it might cause you some sort of "software installation hardship?" I'm really confused what you feel the "ideal world" of your rant is. That the libsass people should have written it in JavaScript? How then would (e.g.) Python compile Sass? By installing Node and calling out to run the JavaScript libsass? Wouldn't that just lead to more people saying things like "Why should I have to install Node just to compile some Sass?" I'm sure the initial implementation of Sass being in Ruby was great for Rails developers because Ruby was already a part of their toolchain. For other projects that were not using Ruby though, Sass required an install of Ruby just for the purpose of compiling Sass.

lotyrin 11y ago

System level package management falls quite short of what you want for applications in a lot of ways still. Different apps will want to specify and build against extremely specific and different versions of their dependencies, and developers will want to be able to change these versions without lots of organizational coordination between owners of dev/CI/stage/production environments. Currently, this is solved by things like npm/bower/bundler/composer/maven/etc. etc. The code repository describes all the dependencies and they get installed just for that app, testing and deployment process simply incorporate the app's packaging tools. However, for any dependencies which use native extensions, you tend to need to be able to compile those - across all your environments - which means having working toolchain everywhere. Not that this is strange or hard in my opinion, but it seems to discourage people somehow.

xrstf 11y ago

I'm on Windows and I don't want to install Visual Studio just because of libsass...

pyre 11y ago
Should the people that wrote libsass have decided whether or not to write it in C based on whether or not you would have to install Visual Studio to get it working on Windows? As a C library, it allows linking from several different languages, so maybe their motivations were getting a non-Ruby Sass implementation that could be used in whatever language you need it in. Maybe then the people that wrote the JS to link against the C library are the people that burdened you with this hardship then? Should every person that wants to use libsass from JavaScript be deterred against creating that JS library linking against libsass just because it might cause you some sort of "software installation hardship?" I'm really confused what you feel the "ideal world" of your rant is. That the libsass people should have written it in JavaScript? How then would (e.g.) Python compile Sass? By installing Node and calling out to run the JavaScript libsass? Wouldn't that just lead to more people saying things like "Why should I have to install Node just to compile some Sass?" I'm sure the initial implementation of Sass being in Ruby was great for Rails developers because Ruby was already a part of their toolchain. For other projects that were not using Ruby though, Sass required an install of Ruby just for the purpose of compiling Sass.