[asdf-devel] New ASDF maintainer sought

[Robert Goldman]

On 9/22/10 Sep 22 -5:26 AM, Juan Jose Garcia-Ripoll wrote:
> There is a rationale for the splitting of asdf.lisp.
> 
...

> * The bootstrapping code can be different for a shipped asdf (one that
> comes with the implementation) and for the asdf that is loaded by users.
> This can be activated by an implementation by choosing whether to use
> defpackage.lisp or something else. Doing this with the monolithic
> asfd.lisp is a hell.

Can you explain this?  I don't really get it.  Presumably any
implementation that wants to distribute ASDF can add its own "after
hooks" in its own private copy.  I'm clearly missing something here...

...

I see some of your points, but I'd encourage you to carefully consider
what I think is the core of Faré's argument:  the cost/benefit tradeoff.

There is a very strictly finite number of hours that can go into ASDF
development.  This will eat a big chunk of them, and the benefit gained
by the community seems small relative to spending those hours on adding
new functionality.

Also this will incur a substantial cost in terms of testing hours, which
are also strictly finite (although larger than the development hours
supply).

Finally, this seems to make more work for implementation maintainers
that wish to bundle ASDF, although perhaps that could be mitigated...

At the end of the day, of course, these are your hours.  If you think
it's important enough, there's nobody stopping you from forking the repo
and doing this work.  But as you've said yourself, you are primarily the
ECL maintainer.  Is this the location where you will get the most value
from your development hours?

Best,
r