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From: Jean-Marc Alliot <jean-marc.alliot@irit.fr>
To: caml-list@inria.fr
Subject: Re: [Caml-list] Build-/Installation-Tools - not enogh of them?
Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2018 14:07:27 +0100 (CET)	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <51c9dbaf-27ac-7470-3662-faa51e8be630@irit.fr> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <alpine.DEB.2.20.1811271102220.3368@hadrien>

Le 27/11/2018 à 11:08, Julia Lawall a écrit :
>
> On Tue, 27 Nov 2018, SF Markus Elfring wrote:
>
>>> Saying "the way to install ocaml is use opam" and then giving a link
>>> showing how to install opam with one's package manager is not a solution.
>> Which solution variants would you prefer instead for the management
>> of involved dependencies by software package formats?
> The question is what to do after installing opam.  Even if there is
> nothing to do after installing opam, it would be helpful to say that.  If
> there is something to do after installing opam to get the ocaml compiler
> for example, as opposed to just the runtime system, it would be helpful to
> say that too.  The documentation should be designed from the point of view
> of the person who has never used ocaml or opam, never wants to use them
> again, and has no contact with the ocaml community. Otherwise, people who
> want to try some ocaml software, but are not actually forced to use it,
> will just give up.
>
> julia
>
+1

Even if I have been using ocaml/caml-light for almost 30 years now, it 
took me a while to switch to opam (I only did that something like 2 
years ago), because I found it easier to use the linux distribution 
package manager, and didn't like much to have to learn a new tool. It is 
also possible that it took me so long because I was used to compile 
myself from source the packages that I needed when they were not in the 
distro.

opam is a really fine tool, but the documentation is "scarse", and 
sometimes looks like it is meant for people knowing opam already. It's 
no big deal as soon as you really need to use it (in the end, compiling 
packages from source had become somewhat nightmarish, so speending some 
time to learn opam was a reasonable decision), but its documentation 
could easily deter someone who is just passing by.

It's not a criticism in any way to the people who have been working on 
opam, who I thank for they excellent work, just the expression of a 
feeling from a happy user of ocaml who would like to see more people use it.

Jean-Marc



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  parent reply	other threads:[~2018-11-27 13:07 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 70+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2018-11-26 10:14 Oliver Bandel
2018-11-26 16:41 ` Yawar Amin
2018-11-26 16:57   ` Julia Lawall
2018-11-26 17:15     ` Yawar Amin
2018-11-26 20:33       ` Julia Lawall
2018-11-26 20:47         ` Yawar Amin
2018-11-26 20:54           ` Julia Lawall
2018-11-26 21:19             ` Yawar Amin
2018-11-26 21:29               ` Julia Lawall
2018-11-26 22:16                 ` SP
2018-11-27  5:24                   ` Malcolm Matalka
2018-11-28  0:20                     ` SP
2018-11-27  6:11                   ` Julia Lawall
2018-11-27  8:45                     ` SF Markus Elfring
2018-11-28  0:04                     ` SP
2018-11-27  9:27                 ` SF Markus Elfring
2018-11-27 10:08                   ` Julia Lawall
2018-11-27 10:28                     ` [Caml-list] Build-/Installation-Tools - not enough " SF Markus Elfring
2018-11-27 10:34                       ` Julia Lawall
2018-11-27 11:05                         ` Jean-Francois Monin
2018-11-27 11:00                           ` Kakadu
2018-11-27 13:18                             ` Malcolm Matalka
2018-11-28  1:52                               ` Francois Berenger
2018-11-28 15:21                             ` Ian Zimmerman
2018-11-27 13:07                     ` Jean-Marc Alliot [this message]
2018-12-06 12:21               ` [Caml-list] Build-/Installation-Tools - not enogh " Richard W.M. Jones
2018-12-06 16:10                 ` Yawar Amin
2018-12-06 20:18                   ` Richard W.M. Jones
2018-12-07  7:31                     ` Daniel Bünzli
2018-12-07  7:44                       ` [Caml-list] What happened to the 'ancient' library for OCaml? Francois Berenger
2018-12-07  8:24                         ` Richard W.M. Jones
2018-12-07  8:26                       ` [Caml-list] Build-/Installation-Tools - not enogh of them? Richard W.M. Jones
2018-12-07  9:01                         ` Daniel Bünzli
2018-12-07 13:22                       ` Stéphane Glondu
2018-12-08  0:58                         ` Daniel Bünzli
2018-12-13 23:45                           ` SP
2018-12-11  2:47                         ` Francois Berenger
2018-12-07 13:12                     ` Malcolm Matalka
2018-11-27 14:32             ` Anil Madhavapeddy
2018-11-27 14:35     ` Gerd Stolpmann
2018-11-30 15:23   ` Louis Gesbert
2018-11-26 22:44 ` Jaap Boender
2018-11-26 22:55   ` Simon Cruanes
2018-11-27 13:29     ` Oliver Bandel
2018-11-27 13:45       ` [Caml-list] Build-/Installation tools - not enough " SF Markus Elfring
2018-11-27 15:06       ` [Caml-list] Build-/Installation-Tools - not enogh " Simon Cruanes
2018-11-27 15:49         ` Oliver Bandel
2018-11-27 16:27           ` Daniel Bünzli
2018-11-27 17:46             ` Jaap Boender
2018-11-28 11:47               ` Jeremie Dimino
2018-12-01 15:12                 ` [Caml-list] How to start with the curren toolset? Hendrik Boom
2018-12-01 16:56                   ` Ian Zimmerman
2018-12-02 15:27                   ` Daniel Bünzli
2018-12-02 23:36                     ` David Allsopp
2018-12-03  2:19                     ` [Caml-list] let's give a try at opam-bundle Francois Berenger
2018-12-02 17:44                   ` [Caml-list] confusing message in opam installer Hendrik Boom
2018-12-02 17:50                     ` Julia Lawall
2018-12-05 19:07                       ` Raja Boujbel - OCamlPro
2018-11-27 16:27           ` [Caml-list] Build-/Installation tools - not enough of them? SF Markus Elfring
2018-11-27 17:09           ` [Caml-list] Build-/Installation-Tools - not enogh " Markus Mottl
2018-11-30 12:41             ` [Caml-list] <DKIM> " Vu Ngoc San
2018-12-07 15:19             ` [Caml-list] " oliver
2018-11-27 16:52       ` Hendrik Boom
2018-11-27 14:11     ` Jaap Boender
2018-11-27  2:33   ` Francois Berenger
2018-11-27 13:31     ` Oliver Bandel
2018-11-27 13:40 ` John F Carr
2018-11-30 16:31   ` Louis Gesbert
2018-12-01  5:01     ` Louis Roché
2018-12-03  0:16     ` Edwin Török

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