Re: [Caml-list] Re: Proposal: community standard library project

[Gerd Stolpmann <info@gerd-stolpmann.de>]

Am Die, 2004-04-27 um 11.06 schrieb skaller:
> On Tue, 2004-04-27 at 06:39, John Goerzen wrote:
> 
> > Let's not limit to CVS, please.  CVS is but one version control system.
> > Subversion and Arch are both popular alternatives here.
> 
> The emphasis on CVS here is because it is used for 
> Ocaml itself, for GODI itself, and also is the standard 
> system on Sourceforge. That covers a lot of projects.

As Alain points out, GODI prefers Subversion for its own configuration
management.

> There may well be other systems, and perhaps GODI
> can handle them at some stage. 

This is quite difficult. The simple part is to download with cvs, but
then? As cvs software changes frequently, but the package makes
assumptions about the software, it is uncertain whether the build and/or
packaging will succeed. I mean, in general, without knowing the
software.

> But right now
> NOT having CVS access is a complete show stopper
> for those people trying to collaborate developing
> several libraries and synchronising them: for example
> the ExtLib, Ocaml itself, the other Extlib, Camomile.

For the OCaml CVS version the plan is to keep it completely outside of
GODI, and to just make fake packages to fulfill the dependencies
(usually packages programmed in OCaml have a dependency on the ocaml
package), so one can create the rest of GODI without using its ocaml
packages.

> To factor these projects, stored in multiple places,
> requires a fast turnaround for change propagation,
> much faster than can be obtained from tarball releases.

I don't understand that. If fast turnaround is really important, isn't
it better to have a self-made script that controls the build process?
E.g. checks out everything needed, and compiles one part after the
other?

I think you want something that cannot be (easily) done with GODI. This
is a quite conservative project in the sense that a GODI package also
ensures some qualities, i.e. it can be built, one can delete it, one can
make a binary package from it, etc.

> So if you want a community structure mediated by GODI
> in which to participate you're going to have to use
> CVS for a while, if only to participate in upgrading
> GODI to also handle Subversion and Arch or whatever :D

I don't believe that the majority of the community is interested in CVS
versions of any software. The advanced people are. And even these will
profit from GODI, because even if you use one or the other CVS version,
this is not true for the majority of libraries.

Gerd
-- 
------------------------------------------------------------
Gerd Stolpmann * Viktoriastr. 45 * 64293 Darmstadt * Germany 
gerd@gerd-stolpmann.de          http://www.gerd-stolpmann.de
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