[Caml-list] GODI news

[Gerd Stolpmann <info@gerd-stolpmann.de>]

Hi list,

there are some news about GODI, the still alive OCaml distribution:

  (1) A new version of the GODI software (godi-tools) has been
      released, with a bunch of new features, code name Skylift
  (2) Accompanying godi-tools, there is also a new bootstrap,
      now defaulting to OCaml-4.00
  (3) There are two new GODI derivates easing the installation
      on Windows.

  *

1. Skylift

It has been possible for a long time to mix packages from various  
sources, e.g. from the official GODI site, and from alternate sites.  
However, this feature was well hidden, and a bit complicated to use.  
Skylift eases this dramatically:

  - It includes scripts for populating directories with packages to
    export to the public (i.e. share your packages with others)
  - The profile feature was added to exactly control from where to
    take packages. The idea is that the user just installs a single
    file ("profile") and then automatically gets the packages from the
    sources described in this file. This makes it easy to import the
    package sources shared by others.

For some environments, it is very meaningful to deviate from GODI's  
source-only policy, and to create and distribute binary packages (i.e.  
already compiled). To support this better, the binary packages (which  
are also present almost since the beginning but were never noticed)  
have been enhanced. They encode now the "binary compatibility status"  
in a checksum that is appended to the filename, e.g.  
foo-3.4@BUILD_65fd12.tar.gz, and also record extended information about  
this issue within the package file. This means that you can have  
several foo-3.4 packages that were built with distinct dependencies,  
and GODI is clever enough to pick the right one. In addition to this,  
GODI supports now also to download binary packages from remote  
directories, and there is also a new UI dialog for this.

For developers, adding a patch to a GODI package has become easier:  
just edit the file, and then run a command to record the change. That's  
it now.

GODI is now also simpler to install, because you don't need wget nor  
PCRE anymore for running the bootstrap: wget is gone because GODI has  
now an included file downloader, and PCRE could be dropped by  
rearranging some Ocamlnet packaging.

Read more about Skylift:
http://godi.camlcity.org/godi/project-doc/skylift-intro.txt

Skylift is now also described in the User's Manual:
http://godi.camlcity.org/godi/user-doc/umanual.html

You can get Skylift only by installing GODI freshly - there is no  
upgrade path for existing installations.


2. The new bootstrap

The new bootstrap is

http://download.camlcity.org/download/godi-skylift-20121022.tar.gz

It works as before, but default now to install OCaml 4.00.1. Of course,  
you can still select an older version of OCaml.

Note that the support for packages is still not perfect for OCaml 4.00,  
but many packages are already ported (by version bump or patch).



3. Windows (mingw)

Skylift also includes all changes to run together with Cygwin-1.7 (a  
lot of the original GODI Windows support was bound to Cygwin-1.5). This  
inspired two guys to further enhance the Windows experience:

  - CygwinGODI (by Sébastien Fricker) is an installer that covers both  
Cygwin
    and GODI: http://cygwingodi.forge.ocamlcore.org/
  - WODI (by Andreas Hauptmann) goes even further, and creates a GODI
    derivate with specially-adapted packages, and a new GUI. WODI
    uses the new Skylift features for mixing packages sources, and for
    providing binary packages: http://wodi.forge.ocamlcore.org/


Read more about GODI in general: godi.camlcity.org

Gerd
-- 
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Gerd Stolpmann, Darmstadt, Germany    gerd@gerd-stolpmann.de
Creator of GODI and camlcity.org.
Contact details:        http://www.camlcity.org/contact.html
Company homepage:       http://www.gerd-stolpmann.de
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