[Caml-list] Re: how could the community help with Oasis-DB; towards a CPAN for OCaml?

[Edgar Friendly <thelema314@gmail.com>]

On 12/10/2011 04:44 PM, Gabriel Scherer wrote:
> Could you (or Sylvain) make a more precise picture of how exactly the
> community could help in the Oasis-DB effort?
>
My opinion is that oasis-db+odb is good enough for wider use.  I don't 
know what plans Sylvain has for the oasis-db server side, but what's 
currently provided is good enough to make many people's lives easier.

> Is the priority to upload package (then maybe the warning on the
> webpage advising not to do it seriously should be changed), or are
> there other things we could help with, for example development
> aspects? Who/where should we ask for advice/help when we have issues?
>
Any current work in packaging things for oasis-db will almost certainly 
be not lost by future updates.  Worst case, if the database side of the 
server gets re-designed, all it has to do is re-import the tarballs and 
everything will be fine.  AFAIK, only Sylvain can change the warning. 
As well, he's the one that knows the server side of things.  I have 
experience dealing with some of its ... subtleties, but no ability to 
fix.  For the client end (downloading, installation) - that's entirely 
me, and I'm happy to work with people on IRC (which I find myself doing 
often with beginners) or over email.

> A few months ago we tried to organize an "OCaml packaging sprint", in
> which in particular Hezekiah M. Carty was of great help. Do you think
> we could restart a similar effort in the short future?
>
Probably more useful would be for people to try packaging the libraries 
that they use for themselves.  I've not made grand announcements so that 
its users can grow slowly, without huge expectations.

> It would really help, I think, if:
> - there was a list somewhere of things other people can contribute

I've just started this wiki page: 
https://github.com/thelema/odb/wiki/SoftwareToPackage listing the status 
of many pieces of software under oasis-db.  Extend.

> - you talked more about the progress of the effort (I discovered
> 'odb.ml' by absolute chance a few weeks ago, while I follow almost all
> OCaml-related information channels); if people don't know about your
> work, they won't contribute
>
I was trying to share it with a small group to work out the bugs, and 
then share with more and more, kind of incremental adoption.  We'll see 
if Sylvain's server can handle whatever load comes from this announcement.

E.

> On Sat, Dec 10, 2011 at 10:01 PM, Edgar Friendly<thelema314@gmail.com>  wrote:
>> On 12/10/2011 03:32 PM, Andrei Formiga wrote:
>>>
>>> The question is: what should be done? What must be done to enable
>>> OASIS-DB?
>>
>>
>> Sylvain has worked with me to enable auto-installation of oasis-db packages
>> via odb[2].  There's not a large repo of packages[1], but most of it is
>> auto-installable (run odb to get a list), as long as you have ocaml and
>> findlib to start from.  The dependencies are automatically handled and
>> installed from source.  I even have confirmation that it works under
>> windows, although it definitely needs cygwin there.
>>
>> The repo could use some love with people uploading[3] new packages to it.
>>   Just provide a tarball and optionally a link to the tarball on some other
>> website.  Oasis dependencies are detected automatically, packages w/o an
>> _oasis file need to have deps specified manually.  Odb is able to install
>> findlib-enabled projects that use ([./configure&&] make&&  make install),
>> (omake&&  omake install) and oasis' setup.ml for building. This last option
>> is able to execute whatever sequence of configure, make and install commands
>> are needed for your project, without replacing the current infrastructure.
>>
>> Files uploaded to the repo are available with odb --unstable, they have to
>> be manually approved to become part of the default --testing.  I hope that
>> in time, the --stable option can become default.  Odb also installs by
>> default to ~/.odb/lib.  --sudo tells it to use sudo for global install,
>> --have-perms tells it to install to the global repo without sudo.  If anyone
>> wants to auto-detect permissions on the ocamlfind global, we can get rid of
>> --have-perms.
>>
>> I'm on #ocaml most of the time, and will get back to you if I'm away. Tell
>> me how things work or don't.
>>
>> E.
>>
>> [1] http://oasis.ocamlcore.org/dev/browse
>> [2] http://github.com/thelema/odb
>> [3] http://oasis.ocamlcore.org/dev/upload
>>
>>
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