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

["Daniel Bünzli" <daniel.buenzli@erratique.ch>]

Le vendredi, 9 mars 2012 à 12:56, Gerd Stolpmann a écrit :
> 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.


If you actually took time to have a look the systems I mentioned, they symlink executables in the regular/expected directories in /usr/local. No short-sighting here, sorry, but of course you may have to question some of your pre-conceptions about package management.  
  
> There are just different sets of principles, and they have their pros and
> cons. The simplicity argument is not always the striking one.


Well in my opinion these system solve problems that are known to be complex (like having multiple versions of the same library) in a conceptually very simple and understandable way.  
  
> 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.


Ah, I thought findlib was a "library manager for Objective Caml". A library without documentation is useless. Frankly, beyond your initial objection, what are the costs and implications of allowing `ocamlfind install` to install files in package subdirectories ?  
  
> 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).


Fundamentally that's not the point, what I want a system that is simple to understand and fix when it breaks. Having easy things like `ocamlfind remove package` removes everything that package installed is part of such a system for me, aswell as simple concepts like everything that this package installed is located in that directory.  
  
> However, I'm really wondering why docs are your first concern here?  


Good documentation and easy access to it makes me productive. I'm sure a lot of other people like to be productive.  

> The
> real hacker does not need docs :-)


I never pretended to be a real hacker... I don't need to show-off, I'm rather limited and actually enjoy simple solutions to complex problems.  

Best,

Daniel