[asdf-devel] Proposal for improved support for versions of systems

[Robert Goldman]

On 6/28/10 Jun 28 -5:22 PM, Vsevolod Dyomkin wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 29, 2010 at 1:00 AM, Faré <fahree at gmail.com
> <mailto:fahree at gmail.com>> wrote:

> 
>     I propose instead that a completely different API be used, that
>     computes and/or
>     checks a source-registry from some specification and a database of
>     available
>     system versions. i.e. layer something on top of ASDF without
>     modifying anything
>     about ASDF proper.
> 
> 
> Yes, that is also possible.  It's just that currently ASDF has some
> half-baked version support and it should be either removed completely
> (deprecated) or improved up to usable state.  I mean, that all the
> versions specified in current defsystem forms are hardly used by any
> software, that might have wanted to utilize them, and that's because of
> poor current implementation, I think.

I think it's also because of poor current documentation (and poor
documentation reading :->).

Where I work we use :version extensively, and I have discussed this with
several people who provide libraries, and encouraged them to comply with
the de facto x.y.z versioning standard.  The library maintainers have
all been very good about adding versioning information, but several have
expressed a lack of understanding of how ASDF :version works.

Until recently, you really needed to read the ASDF source to discover
how :version worked, and that is, IMO, too high a barrier to put.

Best,
r