[asdf-devel] Is this necessary in this form? Re: ASDF 1.501

[Faré]

>> Distribution. Only one file to download and install anywhere, rather
>> than having to dig through a directory, make sure things are there,
>> etc. So far, it has been a constraint respected by ASDF.
>
> if the requirement is, that the single asdf.lisp load stand-alone,
> the experiment i posted does.
> if more is there, an asdf:load-op bootstraps it. if nothing else is
> there, nothing else loads.
>
> aside from which, how would an uninitiate notice the difference between
>   curl ...
> and
>   curl ... | tar xf -
>
And then, this opens the way for the multiple files being out of sync,
having to get md5sum of each of them when debugging an issue, etc.

> what is the actual functional requirement which this constraint is
> intended to satisfy?
Minimizing the number of moving parts to bootstrap a build system.

Two parts is more than one.

>> Also, while I agree that additional functionality should be moved out
>> of ASDF and bootstrapped, I believe that the current ASDF has very
>> little functionality that could be moved out without breaking things.
>
> was the version as of 2009-06 that broken?
>
Yes. It can't be upgraded from itself, configuring it requires too much magic.


> should one not expect even the newest of bies to understand the
> workings of a simple `.asd`.
> these are the same newbies whom one expects to configure it?
Configuring it with 1.591 (yes, I already had to fix bugs in 1.590) is
simple enough for a newbie to to.
Configuring the 2009 version requires magic forms to be inserted in
the execution stream just at the right moment.
It's very hard to do. Requires magic shell scripting and/or magic startup files.
Been there, done that.

> how are changes to the central registry necessarily involved - unless
> they themselves are an aspect of the upgrade?
>
Where will ASDF find the upgrade? Especially considering an ASDF v1
that's been distributed with your implementation, and an ASDF v2 that
you downloaded for sanity. You need to setup the registry before you
have your new ASDF for sure. The horror!

>> YES! If ABL is out of the core, where would the FASLs for ABL
>> itself go???
> where did they go before? where does the asdf binary file go?
I don't know about ABL before it was part of ASDF. I never used ABL.
Instead I used CLC and CL-Launch, that both have to do magic setup for
it all to work.

> if that location were to concern me, i would ensure that a logical
> host is involved and map it in the same way i map all the binary-
> typed files.
And when in the bootstrap of your system do you setup logical hosts?
In between the initial (require :asdf) and the (asdf:oos 'asdf:load-op
:asdf) ? That's utter craziness. You can still do it if you want. No
one else but you wants to.

> which, in itself, is one reason to leave abl out of the core.
> (you didn't ask about the world of files with names which don't
> conform to logical pathname syntax, but just about ABL's own files.
ABL is dead. Long live AOT.

asdf.lisp is now 2589 lines long. It's twice longer than before. But
it does twice as much. And that's still pretty short. I don't see why
you make a big deal of it. What is it YOU are trying to optimize?

[ François-René ÐVB Rideau | Reflection&Cybernethics | http://fare.tunes.org ]
Be careful what you set your heart on — for it will surely be yours.
        — James Baldwin, "Nobody Knows My Name"