[mcclim-devel] Errors installing McClim

[Nikolaus Demmel]

Am 13.07.2010 um 00:06 schrieb Robert Goldman:

> On 7/12/10 Jul 12 -4:39 PM, Peter Busser wrote:
>> Oliver,
>> 
>> Well, my experience with creating lots of Common Lisp .deb packages on
>> Debian shows that problems in most cases are caused by incorrect
>> placement of the .asd file(s) followed by missing .lisp files or other
>> missing stuff. Sometimes the .asd file tries to be smart by doing
>> things that it shouldn't do (like i.e. compile C source code). The
>> most time consuming part for me is to find the right version of
>> libraries. Especially for larger programs with lots of dependencies
>> like Closure, the McCLIM based web browser. Somehow I never got it to
>> do anything useful.
> 
> Well, for the record, compiling C source code is a perfectly legitimate
> thing for an ASDF system definition to do (at least when not in the
> context of a .deb).

I would disagree. Side effecting .asd files are evil and make other peoples lives very hard. (See e.g. http://www.mail-archive.com/asdf-devel@common-lisp.net/msg00949.html)

The problem boils down to the fact, that with side effecting asd files you cannot safely determine a system's dependencies without loading the system.

Best regards,
Niko