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

["Stéphane Glondu" <steph@glondu.net>]

Le 07/12/2018 à 08:31, Daniel Bünzli a écrit :
>> The problem here is you've gone and invented a second package manager. 
> 
> The problem here is rather that the fragmentation around system package managers renders the development of a consistent and cross-platform package set like is being done in the opam-repository largely undoable without an indirection -- the latter materializing as these nth (sadly usually language specific) package managers.
> 
>> Linux distros already have a package manager, used by users and
>> developers alike. The package manager solves a whole lot of stuff
>> like maintaining the whole system, dependencies, releases, security updates,
>> mirroring and distribution, etc. Having a second one (and let's face
>> it if you're using things like npm, cargo, etc., a third, fourth)
>> complicates everything.
> 
> It surely does. 
> 
> I suspect that if linux distributions had agreed on a single package manager (or even metadata format and package **names**), if this one had added a few developer friendly features (e.g. universes to easily distinguish what you want to compile a project from what you want for your system) and if it had been ported to other platforms we wouldn't need all these language specific package managers. But that's a lot of unfufilled ifs...

If everybody had agreed on a single language, we wouldn't need all these
language specific package managers either :-) Replace "language" by
"operating system" or "platform" or ...

Each package manager has its own set of features ("developer
friendly"-ness is just a matter of taste IMHO)... You sound like system
package managers have no features, but the example you give
("distinguish what you want to compile a project from what you want for
your system") is supported by the Debian toolchain (and I guess others).
I haven't been very much impressed by opam (I mean, the package manager
itself) so far, actually there are basic features that are missing (or
not obvious) in opam (such as redistributable binary packages).

> The fact that opam v2 became language agnostic largely supports this point. In some of my projects that's the actual package manager I'm using as my integration layer for C packages.

The mere fact that it is written in OCaml will put many people off, in
particular those who have strong opinions on languages. I don't believe
the existence of a "single package manager" as you hypothesized would
have prevented the proliferation of language specific package managers.

-- 
Stéphane

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