Re: What is CPAN? (was: Re: [Caml-list] Hoogle for Ocaml)

[rixed@happyleptic.org]

> > (1) A network of redundant mirrors which means you can always get the
> > tarball you need, even when the original site is down:

If I understand correctly, GODI site does not store any of the source
tarballs, but the makefiles download the sources directly from their
respective home, does it ? Can't we use the MASTER_SITE_BACKUP make
variables to have one or several backup sites ?

If it's usefull I can try to setup a server to download every possible
source tarballs and serve as such a site backup.

But would it be usefull ?

> > (2) CPAN unpacks each tarball and makes the source and documentation
> > available in a browsable way:

Why is it any better than something like that :

http://docs.camlcity.org/docs/godipkg/3.10/godi-frontc/doc/godi-frontc/html/Ctoxml.html

> > (3) An excellent search tool:

Ok.

> > (4) A central namespace registry for Perl modules.  Once someone has
> > the name 'Net::FTPServer', if you want to write an FTP server, you
> > know you need to give it a different name.

Ok ; unfortunately no such authority is required to name the few
(compared to perl) ocaml libraries.

> > (5) A testing network.
> > (6) A place where you can browse everything that Perl supports:

That would be nice to have in Godi as well.

> > (7) A command line tool to download and install CPAN modules:

I like godi_console (despite laking fancy colors :-), although I'd
like a simpler command line tool to be available as well.