Hi Julia, I agree that we need to simplify the life of the user. But that's
the developer's job, not the language toolchain. Users should not need to
know or care about OCaml (ideally), they should download and run binary
packages or install them through their operating system package manager.

Since it's not possible for many projects to provide all possible system
binaries to users, the fallback should be for the user to build the package
with clear instructions that they'll need to install opam and then
`opam build` (e.g.).

Regards,

Yawar

On Mon, Nov 26, 2018 at 11:59 AM Julia Lawall <julia.lawall@lip6.fr> wrote:

>
>
> On Mon, 26 Nov 2018, Yawar Amin wrote:
>
> > If anyone would like to chime in and say that OCaml build and packaging
> > system is not that complicated, I would recommend first looking
> > at https://github.com/rizo/awesome-ocaml#package-management . IMHO we
> need
> > to seriously look at consolidating efforts around OPAM for package
> > management, packaging, building, testing and running. All the serious
> > language-specific package managers do it, it's a proven strategy and it
> > simplifies life for the developer.
>
> I find it odd that simplifying the life of the developer is the highest
> priority.  Doesn't one want to simplify the life of the user?  Ideally the
> user who has never touched OCaml before in his life?
>
> As a simple example, the web page for installing OCaml says that the
> recommended way to install ocaml is to install opam.  There is a link to a
> page explaining how to install opam.  How should anyone even have
> confidence that they will end up with OCaml after following those
> instructions?  Even step 1 of the installation process leads the user to
> confusion.
>
> julia
>
> >
> > This could be a typical workflow:
> >
> > cd some-ocaml-proj
> > opam install # Switches compiler if necessary and installs and locally
> > caches package dependencies
> > opam build
> > opam run # Automatically builds if necessary
> > opam test # Ditto
> > opam package # Ditto; --upload option can immediately upload to opam
> > opam doc # Builds documentation with ocamldoc or whatever
> > opam login -u user -p password
> >
> > Regards,
> >
> > Yawar
> >
> > On Mon, Nov 26, 2018 at 5:15 AM Oliver Bandel <oliver@first.in-berlin.de
> >
> > wrote:
> >       Hello,
> >
> >       a while ago it looked like there were not enough build- and
> >       installation-tools
> >       for OCaml. I remember some discussions about that.
> >
> >       Now it seems to me that there are a lot of them.
> >       So, developers can pick the one they know about.
> >
> >       For all these tools there might be good reasons to use them, and
> >       those
> >       developers who looked at these tools and choose them for their
> >       projects, will
> >       know them well enough.
> >
> >       The situation differs, if one wants to package the written
> >       software,
> >       and one needs to know many of those tools, just to compile the
> >       stuff.
> >       So, when one just wants to compile and install some software,
> >       just for that, it would take much effort to learn the different
> >       build-tools.
> >
> >       So, packaging has become more complicated, even though for the
> >       developers
> >       these tools may save time.
> >
> >       It would be nice if people who used one of the many new building
> >       tools
> >       could provide a Makefile that allows just to type
> >       "make" and "make install", instead of expecting everyone who
> >       wants to compile
> >       the software to first learn just-another-build-tool.
> >
> >       Also it would be good, to mention early, which installation
> >       tools (make-dependencies)
> >       are in use, and too mention needed packages (opam or others) to
> >       just build the stuff.
> >
> >       Thanks and regards,
> >         Oliver Bandel
> >
> >       --
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> >
> >
>
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