From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: (from majordomo@localhost) by pauillac.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) id FAA05026; Mon, 11 Mar 2002 05:29:10 +0100 (MET) X-Authentication-Warning: pauillac.inria.fr: majordomo set sender to owner-caml-list@pauillac.inria.fr using -f Received: from concorde.inria.fr (concorde.inria.fr [192.93.2.39]) by pauillac.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id FAA05198 for ; Mon, 11 Mar 2002 05:29:09 +0100 (MET) Received: from smile.idiom.com (inreach-gw1.idiom.com [209.209.13.26]) by concorde.inria.fr (8.11.1/8.11.1) with ESMTP id g2B4T8H19849 for ; Mon, 11 Mar 2002 05:29:08 +0100 (MET) Received: from mdaxke (adsl-63-196-0-66.dsl.snfc21.pacbell.net [63.196.0.66]) by smile.idiom.com (8.9.1/8.8.5) with SMTP id UAA00792 for ; Sun, 10 Mar 2002 20:29:07 -0800 (PST) Message-ID: <026e01c1c8b5$32f11260$de5b6620@mdaxke> From: "Mark D. Anderson" To: Subject: Re: [Caml-list] The DLL-hell of O'Caml Date: Sun, 10 Mar 2002 20:28:29 -0800 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2600.0000 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2600.0000 Sender: owner-caml-list@pauillac.inria.fr Precedence: bulk If someone is going to work on this, I'd recommend they look even more deeply at what perl and python do. It is more than just "download over http"; there are also issues of versioning among others. Some of the things both those languages have, to greater or lesser degrees: - there is a web site for humans with search and list, such as search.cpan.org - there is a command line which does search, list, and install, such as "perl -MCPAN -e shell" or "ppm" (ppm is more an activestate thing; CPAN.pm is distributed) The install can deal with recursive dependencies if you want. - the install utility can handle pure language packages, mixed language packages with C source, and mixed language packages with pre-compiled C source for one architecture (ppm is less flexible but simpler). - really obscene things can be done with the perl "Inline" module: http://search.cpan.org/search?dist=Inline - a single language install tree can handle a mixture of binary modules that vary by architecture (i686-linux vs. MSWin32-x86-multi-thread) or by language version (5.005 vs. 5.6). pure-language modules can vary by language version. This is useful for multiple developers sharing a single install over NFS, or for a single developer that is trying out multiple configurations. - the language runtime does best effort when a package is asked for by name, taking the "best-fit" one; this prevents you having to upgrade all packages just because the language is upgraded. -mda ------------------- To unsubscribe, mail caml-list-request@inria.fr Archives: http://caml.inria.fr Bug reports: http://caml.inria.fr/bin/caml-bugs FAQ: http://caml.inria.fr/FAQ/ Beginner's list: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ocaml_beginners