[asdf-install-devel] Patches, Darcs, 'n' stuff

[Gary King]

Hi Dan,

My apologies for being so slow in responding to your posts. It sounds  
like having a lot of interesting ideas and I'm basically in favor of  
the general intent behind all of them! The only concern I have is  
making any migrations smooth and of keeping all the "stakeholders" of  
ASDF and ASDF-Install in the loop.

In the past, there has been concern about putting too many bells and  
whistles into ASDF (and ASDF-Install) where "too many" seems to mean  
"anything that is not there already". There have been various  
proposals put forth about an ASDF2 (qwer or zxcv or whatever!). Here  
is what I think I'd like:

* asdf -- stays more or less as it is
* asdf-install -- stays more or less as it is
* asdf2 -- a new system combining ASDF and ASDF-Install

And here are some desiderata for ASDF2

* Fully backward compatible; any ASDF system can be loaded by ASDF2
	* I'm still of the opinion that mk:defsystem should fade away and  
would be more interested in provided ASDF system defs or a  
compatibility layer within ASDF2 than having to support it...)
* Bootstrappable - ASDF2 should be easily installed by ASDF-Install  
(or other usual means). Once installed, it should be able to take  
over system definition facilities, etc. from ASDF
*  Updatable - ASDF2 should be able to update itself easily and know  
how to check for updates, etc.

Does this seem to fit in with your goals. The big problem with ASDF2  
is that it's a bigger project with a uncertain "return". I think that  
there is room for better system definition facilities and am willing  
to volunteer some time towards the effort. I know that several others  
on this list have expressed interest in the past. Is this the time to  
take another crack at specifying and creating a new beast?


On Nov 24, 2007, at 9:08 PM, Dan Muller wrote:

>
> I installed Darcs and played around with it a bit. I like. I used
> darcs to send some patches directly to Gary's email address -- hope
> that was OK.
>
> Related to some comments I made in an earlier email, I am doing some
> work to make the configuration of defsystems more modular. It's not a
> small change. :) The only intentional behavioral changes is that, when
> a system is defined by more than one system file, the system is loaded
> only once. I'm providing a way for the user to customize the priority
> of defsystems, so they can control which defsystem will be used in
> such cases.
>
> I'm also adding a way for the user to customize how system files are
> installed. I have a separate project that registers system files
> persistently without using symlinks, and this customization allows me
> to plug that registry into both ASDF and ASDF-INSTALL.
>
> I just figured out how to run the test suite included with
> ASDF-INSTALL, and now I'm trying to figure out what the two failures
> are that I'm getting.
>
> BTW, apropos of unit tests, there's something wrong with the LIFT
> documentation on its Web site; the reference information doesn't
> render correctly for me in either Firefox or IE.
>
> -- 
> Dan Muller
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--
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