[asdf-devel] Detecting non-defsystem dependencies

[Faré]

On Thu, Nov 7, 2013 at 12:32 PM, Robert Goldman <rpgoldman at sift.net> wrote:
> Faré wrote:
>> On Thu, Nov 7, 2013 at 9:35 AM, Zach Beane <xach at xach.com> wrote:
>>> Thanks. I started to implement this idea, but I'm concerned because ASDF
>>> already defines an unspecialized :before method on OPERATE. Is it safe
>>> to clobber it? If not, what should I do instead?
>>>
>> Well, I would use a :before method with slightly different specializers
>> than (operation component), e.g. (operation system), since you're only
>> interested in systems. (beware: poiu does that, too, on (operation t))
>
>
> Didn't we once upon a time have method specialization internal to ASDF done by an alternate set of method combination keywords to avoid clashes with extensions like Xach's?
>
> I have a vague memory of this, but an even vaguer one that you had ripped this out because of inconsistencies in different implementations' handling of the extended form of method combination....
>
Yes, I removed it before 2.000, because it was causing non-portability
on many platforms (including earlier versions of CLISP and ABCL), and
because frankly it didn't bring much that couldn't be done better by
splitting a gf in two (e.g. perform-with-restarts). I don't believe in
this "clash" theory too much, or in the theory that the convoluted
method combination helped. You still have just as much and as little
clash when defining new methods, and still need to be somewhat careful
not to step on anyone else's toes.

It's one more of these fancy experiments that the original ASDF
authors did, that doesn't amount to much in the end. Of course, if
they hadn't experimented, they wouldn't have discovered the *good*
things about ASDF. In retrospect, my job with ASDF2 & ASDF3 will have
been to distill the good stuff, complete and fix it, and throw away or
deprecate the bad stuff.

—♯ƒ • François-René ÐVB Rideau •Reflection&Cybernethics• http://fare.tunes.org
To converse at the distance of the Indes by means of sympathetic contrivances
may be as natural to future times as to us is a literary correspondence.
                — Joseph Glanvill, 1661