Re: [Chicken-users] Eggology

[felix winkelmann]

On 8/23/07, Will M Farr <address@hidden> wrote:
> For an interesting perspective on this issue (which could probably be
> incorporated by minor changes in the egg system), you guys might have
> a look at PLT's PLaneT server.  You can find a design paper at
>
> http://scheme2006.cs.uchicago.edu/04-matthews.pdf
>
> and, of course, the PLaneT repository at
>
> http://planet.plt-scheme.org/
>
> I think it's quite a nice system, and it's solved a lot of the
> problems discussed in this thread already, so it's probably worth
> stealing from....

I knew this would be mentioned sooner or later... Thanks, Will! ;-)

Now here comes a heretic and blasphemous proposal:

Why not just keep things as they are?

There are many solutions to this problem, both in general (usually UNIX
packaging concepts) or language-based solutions and NONE of them
completely handles all bordercases (like multiple versions of libraries
in planet, which is IIRC not supported, for good reasons). Once you
introduce versions, one not only has to mentally distinguish between
extensions A and extension B and whether A depends on B, no:
you have also to be aware of the versions of both A and B and whether
they fit, and everything. This doesn't work, IMHO. Let's not create more
headaches as we already have just by wondering about what is technically
possible.


cheers,
felix