[asdf-devel] Problems with different versions of ASDF

[Robert Goldman]

I have been running with ASDF from ACL and sometimes overloading it with
ASDF from git.

This gives me package errors like the following:

;   Fast loading
/Users/rpg/.cache/common-lisp/acl-8.2-macosx-x64/Users/rpg/lisp/asdf-context/set-context.fasl
Error loading #P"/Users/rpg/clinit.cl": No package exists of name
ASDF/LISP-ACTION.

I suspect this happened because ASDF-context was compiled in an image
with ASDF 3 loaded, and is being loaded in an image with ASDF 2.x
(shipped by Franz with Allegro).

Is there something I can do in systems that build on ASDF to avoid this
from happening?

Putting (:depends-on ASDF) in the relevant system (here my
"asdf-context" system) does not solve the problem.

It seems that we need a mechanism that says "if ASDF has changed its
package structure, you must recompile."

I understand the original motivation for subdividing the packages, but I
think in future we need to be careful not to do this without an explicit
plan to ensure it doesn't cause this kind of bug.

It's an interesting unforeseen issue in the plan to be able to upgrade
ASDF -- you need also to be able to downgrade!  I.e., if I want to be
able to test new ASDF, I may still need to work with colleagues who are
using an older, implementation-provided version.

For now, I can simply blow away my cache, and I expect that will solve
the problem, but it's something to consider.

thanks,
r