[with spkg; needs work] make qasm an optional spkg

[was]

See attached spkg. This came up at

 http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel/browse_thread/thread/175e8f515e58d497

It might be a good example of something, so maybe should become an optional spkg... It's pretty specialized and very small.

[GeorgSWeber]

This ticket needs work in several areas:

• SPKG.txt is not up to current standards, see  http://wiki.sagemath.org/spkgTemplate

• spkg-install is not up to current standards, see  http://wiki.sagemath.org/SPKG_Audit resp. trac ticket #633 --- adding a check for SAGE_LOCAL to be non-empty is a blocker IMHO

• The spkg-install says:

      echo "You must make sure the dvipng program is available on your system."
      echo "You might be able to install the dvipng program listed in the"
      echo "output of 'sage -optional'.  If that doesn't work, just use whatever"
      echo "is offered by your operating system."
      exit 1
  

but in the discussion on sage-devel (link above) it is said:

Do not install that dvipng spkg.  You *MUST* install dvipng instead
using whatever method your operating system provides (e.g., rpm, deb,
etc.).  It's a completely standard linux program.  The Sage dvipng
spkg will be deleted soon, since it doesn't make sense for us to be
hosting it.

 -- William 

• (optional) the qasm.py would benefit from a doctest, the addition of some kind of example could easily be turned into a working spkg-check script

[was]

adding a check for SAGE_LOCAL to be non-empty is a blocker IMHO

I've always considered that SAGE_LOCAL thing pointless.

Anyway, upon further reflection, and given the lack of response by anybody in the community related to qasm, I think this is way too specialized to be an official optional spkg. I'm thus closing this ticket.

[mabshoff]

Replying to was:

adding a check for SAGE_LOCAL to be non-empty is a blocker IMHO

I've always considered that SAGE_LOCAL thing pointless.

Not if you run spkg-install from the command line to debug things.

Cheers,

Michael