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

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

 On 7 December 2018 at 14:22:06, Stéphane Glondu (steph@glondu.net) wrote:

> 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 ...

This comparison is entirely inadequate. Distribution tarballs are distribution tarballs. The fact that linux distros/bsds/whatever are not even able to agree on a single name and version number for the same tarballs and that we need to lose our time to maintain mappings on how each random distribution names the same fucking software artefact should be a hint that this is *not* about agreeing on a single language and platform but rather a problem in consistent human stupidity.

> 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).

This obsession about features is quite interesting, always this myth about the more features the better... Maybe opam does only the 5% of your truly awesome system package managers but it does so in a relatively lean way, that is adequate for development and allows to define and maintain (at the risk of repeating myself) packages universes accross your pet distribution and/or operating system. 

You are all most welcome to live in your distro and package manager bubbles and idiosyncrasies but don't start claiming they are able to provide what opam and OCaml opam repository currently provide because they simply do not.

> 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).

Opam is far from perfect and I have many concerns about its current usability. But the basic feature you mention is missing is absolutely unuseful to solve the problem opam is solving right now (see above in case that is still not clear).

> I don't believe the existence of a "single package manager" as you hypothesized would
> have prevented the proliferation of language specific package managers.

I gave one explanation, I don't claim that this is it, but at least provide a competing one. So far you did not so maybe you should try to reflect a bit more on the problem. I don't think anyone here would be sad to see language specific package managers go and frankly I'm pretty sure both opam developers and opam repository maintainers would be glad to spend their time on more fun projects.

Best,

Daniel


 

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