Re: [Caml-list] OCaml maintenance status / community fork (again)

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

Am Dienstag, den 13.12.2011, 20:36 +0100 schrieb oliver:
> Hello,
> 
> 
> installing packages in R also is quite easy.

Well, package management for scripting languages is way easier. You can
especially do some of the management at load time. If, for example, a
symbol is missing because a predecessor is too old, there is generally
the possibility to work around by providing an alternate definition, and
to resolve this within the scripting environment.

A statically typed compiler language like Ocaml is more difficult,
because you can do these kinds of fixups only at build time. Part of
this is that you need to recompile all successors of a package if you
upgrade the package.

> In a running R you just type "install.packages("RMySQL")"
> get a window to select a server and things then happen
> automagically: source download, compilation, installation.
> either in a systemwide manner or if permissions of your session
> do not allow it, somewhere beyond your local $HOME.
> It's even easier than with Perl / CPAN.
> 
> (And using not the official CRAN packages is easy: just
> change the setting of the used repository and you could
> install the newest/freshest stuff easily too.)
> 
> 
> Or when installing at the OS level not officially supported packages
> on Arch linux (for official ones you could just use
> the installer pacman), then makepgg will help you.
> For installation as well as creating packages by your own.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Sun, Dec 11, 2011 at 12:02:57PM +0100, Gerd Stolpmann wrote:
> > Am Sonntag, den 11.12.2011, 00:28 +0100 schrieb Jesper Louis Andersen:
> > > On Sat, Dec 10, 2011 at 15:45, Xavier Leroy <Xavier.Leroy@inria.fr> wrote:
> > > 
> > > > 2- As pointed out already in this discussion, it's not on the Caml compiler
> > > > that community efforts are most needed.  For example, the most impactful
> > > > action that his community could take, in my opinion, is to adopt and embrace
> > > > a common packaging system like Cabal for Haskell.
> > > 
> > > This one piqued my interest somewhat. I should refrain from
> > > commenting, but I can't help myself.
> > 
> > It's interesting to hear these comments. In short, in ocaml we have
> > these options:
> > 
> > - Full featured package management: we have this (GODI), but the
> >   community is not too large (package maintainers are always
> >   welcome!) As every full-featured system, GODI has complicated
> >   parts, and you need to invest 1-2 days before you fully
> >   understand it and can build packages.
> [...]
> 
> And why to use GODI and create OCaml/GODI packages and not
> a *.deb or *.rpm or PKGBUILD/tgz?

The question includes the answer. Do you really want to support five
different package types?

> Or does GODI also allows creation of such OS-related packages?

Not yet, but this is certainly not impossible with a to-be-written
package converter.

So far, there has been nobody who investigated this in detail.
(Actually, I'm a bit surprised that none of the OS packagers had the
idea yet - this could save a lot of time for them.)


Gerd

> 
> 
> Ciao,
>    Oliver
>