[asdf-devel] summary proposal for COMMON_LISP_PATH and system search changes

[Robert Goldman]

Gary King wrote:
> Here is a summary of what I've heard and what I think we should do.
> 
> # Proposal Summary
> 
> These are independent but make the most sense if taken as a
> whole.
> 
>   * Specify new defaults for `*central-registry*`,
> 
>   * use an environment variable named `COMMON_LISP_PATH` to
>     override ASDF's defaults,

Here's a use case for which I don't think this is good --- consider a
person who uses more than a single Common Lisp implementation (e.g., ACL
+ SBCL + CCL).  Is it problematic to have a single COMMON_LISP_PATH
environment variable?

Maybe it's not, and we should just say "if you're going to do something
this complicated, you'll have to do some engineering of your init files
that's more complicated than setting a variable /anyway/, so you're not
the sort of person for whom this was intended."

Thoughts?