[xcvb-devel] Next on the TODO list: multiple BUILDs, search paths, etc.

[Albert Krewinkel]

"Faré" <fahree at gmail.com> writes:

> Since the initial prototype release, I've been cleaning up a bit and
> adding to the documentation, focusing notably on what's TODO next.

That is some impressiv TODO list.  Reading my way through the docs and
the todo, I believe you are on to something really cool here.  I
especially like the good support for a more hierarchical code
organisation.

> One topic that's at the same time relatively easy to code and urgent
> is the ability to handle multiple projects that must be compiled
> together.
>
> ASDF has its infamous *central-registry*. gcc has /usr/include and
> various -I flags. then there is PERL5PATH, PYTHONPATH, etc.
>
> What should xcvb do?
>
> I was thinking of identifying every BUILD with a URN, possibly using
> xcvb: as the prefix. But how shall we map some top-level directories
> to some URNs?
>
> Any ideas on what xcvb should do? Remember that currently, xcvb takes
> a xcvb-specialized lisp configuration / program as a parameter -- but
> we may eventually want to also/instead have a full command-line
> interface to drive xcvb from Make.
>
> My current thoughts: XCVB at startup initializes a path from each of
> the following, in order, that may either modify or replace the former:
> 1- builtin default, say /usr/share/common-lisp/source/
> 2- environment variable, say XCVB_PATH, : delimited, some magic entry
> ! means splice the former value
> 3- command-line argument, say --path, same behavior as above
> 4- lisp configuration, say xcvb:*search-path*, a list of pathnames.
>
> How each pathname is interpreted is that whenever a new module is
> requested, it is looked up:
> 1- in the current build
> 2- in each of the parents of the current build
> 3- in each of the paths specified above, from first to last (left to right).
>
> Any comments?

Just a random thought which sprang into my mind: I always kinda wished
ASDF was offering the option to put a couple of definitions into a
single file.  Although slow, this is convenient and windows friendly
(new project: just append to file).

Albert