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 LAA07747; Wed, 16 Jul 2003 11:23:08 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: pauillac.inria.fr: majordomo set sender to owner-caml-list@pauillac.inria.fr using -f Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by pauillac.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id LAA24724 for ; Wed, 16 Jul 2003 11:23:06 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from aomori.annexia.org (annexia.force9.co.uk [212.56.101.183]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.11.1/8.11.1) with ESMTP id h6G9N6T01429 for ; Wed, 16 Jul 2003 11:23:06 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from rich by aomori.annexia.org with local (Exim 3.36 #1 (Debian)) id 19ciUq-0003fM-00; Wed, 16 Jul 2003 10:22:48 +0100 Date: Wed, 16 Jul 2003 10:22:48 +0100 To: BdB Cc: Issac Trotts , caml-list@inria.fr Subject: Re: [Caml-list] CTAN/CPAN for Caml (COCAN ...?) Message-ID: <20030716092248.GA8914@redhat.com> References: <3F14E84A.1080801@ucdavis.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.4i From: Richard Jones X-Loop: caml-list@inria.fr X-Spam: no; 0.00; caml-list:01 cpan:01 cpan-like:01 libs:01 sudo:01 perl's:01 java-like:01 partition:01 kicked:99 freshmeat:01 dbi:99 threads:01 ltd:98 caml:01 command:98 Sender: owner-caml-list@pauillac.inria.fr Precedence: bulk On Wed, Jul 16, 2003 at 08:43:20AM +0200, BdB wrote: > ?.02 here: there's a couple of stuff that a CPAN-like website could do > 1) hosting libs > 2) cross-referencing & automatic dependency generation > 3) registry (the business of ensuring non-collision) Another important point would be: 4) A standard packaging and build process. For example, you can download any Perl package and type: perl Makefile.PL && make && sudo make install You can use Perl's CPAN module to download, compile and install the dependent packages with one command. It all works automatically because all Perl packages follow a few fairly simple rules. > As for the last point... well, one possible drawback of current O'CaML is > its module namespace. My fear is that module names are soon enough going to > look like JoesXMLParser to distinguish it from MikesXMLParser (betting on > the success of the initiative here). Well, actually there can be modules > within modules, so that's not exactly a flat module namespace. But if > someone makes a module called Joe.XMLParser, it has got to be defined in > joe.ml[i], which is in my opinion a pretty bad name to give to a file > containing an XML parser. Maybe java-like module namespace partition is > something worth considering for efficient community management? I agree this is a problem, but a Java-like module namespace is about the worst possible solution. Perl has many thousands of packages but does not require it. Mostly this is because of an informal honour system: no one names their package "CGI" unless it is absolutely the best system for writing CGI scripts. Little-used or still-born packages can also be kicked out of the archive. Rich. -- Richard Jones. http://www.annexia.org/ http://freshmeat.net/users/rwmj Merjis Ltd. http://www.merjis.com/ - all your business data are belong to you. PTHRLIB is a library for writing small, efficient and fast servers in C. HTTP, CGI, DBI, lightweight threads: http://www.annexia.org/freeware/pthrlib/ ------------------- 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