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 QAA04050; Tue, 13 Apr 2004 16:54:35 +0200 (MET DST) 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 QAA30540 for ; Tue, 13 Apr 2004 16:54:34 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from mail.npc.de (fw.npc.de [62.225.140.214]) by concorde.inria.fr (8.12.10/8.12.10) with ESMTP id i3DErNYM006382 for ; Tue, 13 Apr 2004 16:54:33 +0200 Received: from styx.ffm.npc.de (lion.npc.de [192.168.129.1]) by mail.npc.de (Postfix) with ESMTP id 79A06140E; Tue, 13 Apr 2004 16:53:22 +0200 (CEST) Received: from hera.ffm.npc.de (hera.ffm.npc.de [192.168.130.8]) by styx.ffm.npc.de (Postfix STYX NPC GmbH) with ESMTP id 0E9E8C437; Tue, 13 Apr 2004 16:53:21 +0200 (CEST) Received: from ares.ffm.npc.de (ares.ffm.npc.de [192.168.130.32]) by hera.ffm.npc.de (Postfix HERA NPC GmbH) with ESMTP id 84637159C9; Tue, 13 Apr 2004 16:53:20 +0200 (CEST) Received: from ares.ffm.npc.de (ares.ffm.npc.de [192.168.130.32]) by ares.ffm.npc.de (Postfix ARES NPC GmbH) with ESMTP id 57D14183E; Tue, 13 Apr 2004 16:53:19 +0200 (CEST) Subject: Re: [Caml-list] Dynamically evaluating OCaml code From: Gerd Stolpmann To: John Goerzen Cc: Trevor Andrade , caml-list@inria.fr In-Reply-To: <20040413142416.GC22749@excelhustler.com> References: <000001c4211e$aa699c40$24ab978e@trevorkrny6zst> <1081855023.282.36.camel@ares> <20040413142416.GC22749@excelhustler.com> Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Ximian Evolution 1.0.8 Date: 13 Apr 2004 16:53:18 +0200 Message-Id: <1081867999.282.65.camel@ares> Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Miltered: at concorde by Joe's j-chkmail ("http://j-chkmail.ensmp.fr")! X-Loop: caml-list@inria.fr X-Spam: no; 0.00; caml-list:01 dynamically:01 gerd:01 stolpmann:01 2004:99 2004:99 gerd:01 stolpmann:01 disadvantage:01 hides:01 end-user:01 perl's:01 cpan:01 dependencies:01 cpan:01 Sender: owner-caml-list@pauillac.inria.fr Precedence: bulk X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 275 Am Die, 2004-04-13 um 16.24 schrieb John Goerzen: > On Tue, Apr 13, 2004 at 01:17:01PM +0200, Gerd Stolpmann wrote: > > You should have a look at GODI, http://www.ocaml-programming.de/godi, > > which is a caml distribution (although not very complete yet). However, > > GODI does not implement the "one big download" approach, but allows the > > user to select the packages he wants. The big advantage is that > > independent updates are possible. There is no disadvantage for the user > > because there is a nice user interface that hides the complex technical > > details. > > Hi Gerd, > > I've seen several references here to GODI and I checked it out. I am > wearing several "hats" in this discussion; one of them is a developer > for Debian, and another is a developer, and another still is an end-user > of OCaml code. > > From the surface (and this is just from reading, not from actually > installing it), one problem I see with GODI is that it will not > necessarily play nice with an existing packaging system. For instance, > if the user has installed OCaml and some libraries from Debian already, > but wants to add some others from GODI, it looks problematic. Perl's > CPAN addresses this nicely (it will simply download things not already > present and install them in a separate directory). Perl is a scripting language, installing something means mostly to copy the files at the right places. O'Caml sources must be compiled, and once that has happened, there are strict dependencies on the environment (e.g. if library X uses library Y the signature of Y must not change any more). This is one of the key reasons why GODI uses a rather heavy-weight packaging system, unlike CPAN. Of course, this makes it more complicated to integrate it into already existing packaging systems. However, I can imagine we could have "GODI Light" that assumes there is already a working O'Caml installation, and that only installs the missing parts. This is not impossible. (Actually, I have a similar idea on my TODO list, namely to allow the usage of a CVS OCaml version.) > Also, moving everything into ocamlfind may cause compatibility issues > for application developers that may be accustomed to not using ocamlfind > for certain libraries that are not normally distributed using ocamlfind. The "-I +lib" syntax is supported for libraries that are used to be installed this way. (This is currently achieved by symlinks. Not really nice. Better would be a path where lib is searched, but this needs a change in ocamlc.) > Having said all that, I think that GODI is an excellent idea and sorely > needed. I still maintain that installation of libraries and > applications in OCaml is way more difficult than it need be. Gerd -- ------------------------------------------------------------ Gerd Stolpmann * Viktoriastr. 45 * 64293 Darmstadt * Germany gerd@gerd-stolpmann.de http://www.gerd-stolpmann.de ------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------- 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