Re: [Caml-list] Build-/Installation-Tools - not enogh of them?

[Hendrik Boom <hendrik@topoi.pooq.com>]

On Tue, Nov 27, 2018 at 02:29:15PM +0100, Oliver Bandel wrote:
> 
> But if you just want to use OCaml for your programming,
> why additionally need to learn opam and now dune?
> 
> Those dvelopers who want to enrich the makedependency-hell, can do it of course.
> But please add a Makefile, that allows people who don't know or don't even want to know
> opam, dune and so many other tools,
> so that "make" and "make install" does work properly, even you never heard of all the
> new tools.

The Makefile could be as simple as the few commands that use the 
existing opam-specific package manager(s) to do the installation that 
we now expect the user to figure out.  The few lines this community 
seems to expect people to already know.

It could even be accompanied by the usual ./configure file that wold do 
nothing but tell the otherwise hapless user what package manager still 
needs to be installed and how to do that.

So the installation becomes
./configure
make install

> 
> To create such Makefiles should be easy for people who know the used build-/installer-tools.
> But it's hard to learn any new build-/installation-tool in 5 minutes,
> just to get a small package (or a bunch of them) installed, to go on with the own work.

Almost every time I've tried using libraries of packages or even just 
programming in ocaml, run into trouble and ask for help, I am advised 
to use different tools from the ones I am using.  Different ones each 
time.

And when I use a packaged OCaml library, I often find a bug that never 
gets fixed.  The original developer or packager has moved on to other 
things, and the package is effectively orphaned.

I've given up.  I prefer the OCaml language, but I'm more productive in 
Go.

I regret this.

-- hendrik

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