[cffi-devel] asdf-install

[Robert Goldman]

Attila Lendvai wrote:
>> short-horizon alternative (besides using the revision control systems, which
>> doesn't work terribly well when there are cross-library dependencies).  If I
> 
> fwiw, in my experience this is right the opposite.
> 
> i don't say that i never have problems putting together a working
> setup, because inter-library dependencies can cause headaches with
> non-backward compatible changes, but in such situations i find DVCS'es
> especially useful.
> 

Actually, I think perhaps the biggest part of the problem is that the 
:version :depends-on (and indeed, the :version attribute itself) in ASDF 
has never really caught on, meaning that as a library or system user 
it's hard to detect when a dependency has failed.

Ideally, with a :version depends-on, it should be possible to detect 
when, e.g., my beirc update requires a version of cl-irc I don't have....

Doubly ideally, ASDF-install should support installing particular 
version numbers, and ASDF should permit us to have multiple versions of 
a single library installed....  But if people don't use the :version 
attributes, there's not really a lot of point in fussing about handling 
versions.

I suppose it would be possible to back-end ASDF-install to a DVCS or a 
conventional VCS...

cheers,
r