Re: [Caml-list] Re: oasis packaging questions

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

> Le jeudi, 8 mars 2012 à 22:27, Sylvain Le Gall a écrit :
>
>> It does it the right way ;-)
>
>
> The "I'm going to vomit files across your whole file system so that you
> need another bureaucratic tool/database too keep track of what I did
> whenever you want to remove me" way. Sure if you're looking for a business
> model and more bureaucracy that's the way to do it the "right way". The
> key insight in things like gnu stow or homebrew is that this tool/database
> already exists, it's the file system itself, KISS principle. And this
> simplicity also allows you to deal very easily with multiple version
> installs of the same package.

You can call it KISS, but I would call it short-sighted. This has nothing
to do with bureaucracy. Imagine a package has also some utilities to
install (and feeled every second package has). You just don't want to have
to include tons of bin/ directories into your PATH. It does not scale
well, but just slows down your system.

There are just different sets of principles, and they have their pros and
cons. The simplicity argument is not always the striking one.

>> I would probably object to have html documentation in the $SITELIB of
>> findlib.
>
>
> To me that seems to be an ideological objection (debian related I guess),
> I don't see any technical objection. KISS should be applied here: I
> installed that package in that directory anything related to it is in that
> single directory.

That's really funny how you interpret this, but I guess this is just a
matter of perspective. findlib does not support subdirectories just
because I wanted to keep it lean, and to avoid adding features it does not
need for its core job. And the core job is to drive the compiler with the
right flags, and not to provide a container for storing files.


>
>> I think a CHANGES/README is light enough to be in $SITELIB as well.
>
> CHANGES and README light, html heavy ? For one thing keep it at least
> consistent either you choose to put nothing in SITELIB or everything. I
> don't want to have to lookup two different places for documentation.
>
>> To be honest, if it was the only problem I have to solve, I'll be happy
>> to spend hours on that.
>
> I don't think it's a good idea for the whole system to underestimate the
> importance of documentation.

I totally understand your point that you want to have a system that makes
it easy to hack around (it's clearly no fun with the complex guys).
However, I'm really wondering why docs are your first concern here? The
real hacker does not need docs :-)

Gerd


>
>> But all this need to be more widely discuss (with OCamlPro for
>> TypeRex, Maxence for .odoc/Cameleon, Gerd for ocamlfind and the rest
>> of the community to have a real agreement on this point).
>
>
> I'm all for it, but now that I'm in these things I want to move forward.
> So what should I write something like this (currently) nop ?
>
> Document xmlm
> Title: "Xmlm documentation and module reference"
> Format: html
> Index: Xmlm.html
> Install: true
> InstallDir: $docdir
> DataFiles: CHANGES README doc/*.html, doc/*.css
>
> Or should I make another Document for CHANGES README ?
>
>> Well _oasis can also go there, even though it will be a little bit a
>> duplicate with META...
>
>
> It also has much more information in a machine readable format. Like the
> home page of the project, the maintainers, maybe even the repos etc.
>
> Best,
>
> Daniel
>
>
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-- 
Gerd Stolpmann, Darmstadt, Germany    gerd@gerd-stolpmann.de
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