[Caml-list] let's give a try at opam-bundle

[Francois Berenger <mlists@ligand.eu>]

On 03/12/2018 00:27, Daniel Bünzli wrote:
> On 1 December 2018 at 16:12:21, Hendrik Boom (hendrik@topoi.pooq.com) 
> wrote:
> 
>> So, to get dune I need to install ocaml.
>> To get Ocaml it's recommended to start with opam (even though I don't
>> need it for dune)
>> To get opam ... ??
> 
> I think this discussion could benefit if people could stop mixing
> users who wish to 1) install OCaml to program in OCaml 2) install
> OCaml because an application they use is using OCaml (those may
> actually not even know they are installing OCaml)
> 
> If you are in 1) your best solution is to install `opam` using one of
> the ways documented on the opam install page and then use the
> opam-repository to install an ocaml compiler and the OCaml packages
> you'd like to use. 
> 
> If you are in 2) then *you should not* install opam nor ocaml via opam
> and propably don't even know that you are going to install OCaml since
> that will occur as a side effect of installing the application via
> your operating system packager.

I believe many ocaml programs available in opam don't have a package
in most Linux distributions (or it might be an old version, if there is 
one).

So, here comes opam-bundle:

https://github.com/AltGr/opam-bundle

That probably more people should know about, give it a try and report
problems, if any:

https://github.com/AltGr/opam-bundle/issues

Trying the tool and reporting problems is _very_ important, so that the 
tool
has a chance to improve, get some attention/contributions, etc.
I hope that many people will use it, so that it is really battle-tested
and production ready.

Packaging coccinelle for end-users (who should not have to bother about 
ocaml
or opam) should be as simple as

$ opam-bundle coccinelle

If it is not, maybe some opam-bundle bug has to be reported.
I did not try, I just give coccinelle as a complex software example with
probably many dependencies ('opam-bundle memcad' might also be quite a 
harsh test).

I just created a bundle for some very simple software I have
in opam. It worked, the bundle was created on Linux and I could
install and run the software on a mac. That was cool.

Regards,
Francois.