[asdf-devel] Various issues

[Robert Goldman]

On 5/24/12 May 24 -10:12 AM, Faré wrote:
> On Thu, May 24, 2012 at 11:01 AM, Tobias C Rittweiler <tcr at freebits.de> wrote:
>> In article <4FBE3BC7.7090505 at sift.info>,
>>  Robert Goldman <rpgoldman at sift.info>
>>  wrote:
>>
>>> On 5/24/12 May 24 -4:13 AM, Tobias C Rittweiler wrote:
>>>> Hi there!
>>>>
>>>> Thanks to the ASDF maintainers. I just visited ASDF's website
>>>> on common-lisp.net since a long time, and it makes a nicely
>>>> maintained impression! Well done.
>>>>
>>>> I have the following issues:
>>>>
>>>>   * The rather old ASDF version that I'm using ("2.010") does
>>>>     not seem to be able to cope with multiple :depends-on clauses.
>>>>     (Only one clause seems to be used.)
>>>>
>>>>     Is this intended behaviour? Might it be fixed in more recent
>>>>     versions?
>>>
>>> Tobias, does ASDF just take the first and quietly throw later ones on
>>> the floor, or does it at least emit an error message?  If it emits an
>>> error message, I think it's ok.  But if it quietly discards the second
>>> clause, I think it's a bug, and we should make ASDF warn the programmer.
>>>  I'd encourage you to post a launchpad bug in that case.
>>>
>>> Sorry to bother asking you instead of just testing --- I'm traveling and
>>> not in a good position to test anything.  Similarly not a great time for
>>> me to make launchpad bugs.
>>>
>>> cheers,
>>> r
>>
>> Yes ignoring the second clause was what happened on SBCL.
>>
>> I will submit a ticket.
>>
> I don't know that it's a bug. As Stelian mentioned,
> we're using destructuring-bind and/or apply 'make-instance,
> and that's the normal behavior in these cases.
> I think we should just document this behavior,
> and NOT try to catch and raise an error in the case of repeated keys.

I believe I disagree:  I don't think that the user of ASDF should have
to know that this is done using DESTRUCTURING-BIND --- that's a species
of data UN-abstraction.  It's also something that is difficult to
capture clearly in the defsystem grammar (because "there is only one
copy of each keyword" is not a context free grammar).  So I think if we
can help the user, that would be a good thing, and better than quietly
throwing something on the floor.

But I think that makes it up to me to propose a patch, rather than
expect anyone else to do it!  So I will see if I can make one.

Cheers,
r