Question

I’ve recently become interested in prototype-based OOP, and I’ve been playing with Io and Ioke. Distributing an application with Ioke is simple. It’s on the JVM. Need I say more? However, I’m absolutely stumped as to how one would distribute an Io application, especially on Windows. It’s not like you can have end-users compile Io to run your application.

I was actually shocked the Io has gone for 8 years without forming some sort of standards for things like distribution. Ruby has gems, Java has jars, and so on.

The worse thing about it is, I can’t find a single application written in Io to maybe steal ideas on distribution from. Maybe I suck at google searching (Io is a horrible search name, by the way ;P).

Is there any sort of canonical way to distribute Io applications? Are there even any Io applications in existence, or am I just missing the point?

I’m not sure if this should be community wiki or not. If you think it should, comment and let me know.

Answer 1

As for standards for packaging / distribution there is the Addons. It seems to be mainly geared for added C libraries to Io but should work with pure Io code as well.

The Addons documentation is a little sparse. There is a Writing Addons wiki page which may help. But best bet is to just delve into Addons which hopefully is included with your Io install. Source for these can be found on Github in addons under the main Io project.

Just to beef up bit about Io programs/projects is on Github, here are some Github links:

• Overview of Io projects on Github
• Complete list of Io projects on Github (includes forks)

There are a few fledgling packaging projects listed there which, in time, one of which may gain traction and perhaps universal adoption?:

• boid
• iopackage
• eerie

Update: There is a recent(ish) discussion on the Io mailing list about packaging. No outcome as yet.

/I3az/