From: Gary K. <gw...@me...> - 2008-10-14 23:23:17
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Hi Richard, How meta! (pun intended) On it's face, I think that your idea is great. I do, however, have two concerns that revolve around your statement that: > For my part, I don't see any reason why the Lisp community should > constrain itself to having exactly one defsystem facility. ASDF is > useful, but it has shortcomings, and since it's never clear which of > ASDF's details are intended or accident, and in any case which details > are important to anybody, ISTM that it would probably be a good > thing if > alternative defsystems could co-exist. Sometimes, I think Lisp is nothing but a plethora of ways to do the same thing. Maybe it's only because I'm not familiar with the communities, but AFAIK, if one wants to install something in Ruby, you look for a GEM; if you want to get something for Python, you go to CPAN, etc. Lisp tends to make things much harder because we keep inventing things. Each new defsystem adds another barrier to entry because it requires more setup and thinking. Choice is good; too much choice is paralyzing. To my mind, ASDF has _won_. It is the default and most Lisps are bundled with a version of it. I think that we should be improving it, not replacing it. The last thing we (as a Lisp community) need is another defsystem -- even a 99% compatible one. My concerns therefore are: 1. that this additional layer adds another thing to break and to confuse people. 2. that building a new defsystem adds another thing for people to do if they want to use system _foo_ that uses it. That said, I agree that incompatible changes should not be introduced without a lot of thought (that's why noone commits to ASDF unless there is a discussion here first, right?). -- Gary Warren King, metabang.com Cell: (413) 559 8738 Fax: (206) 338-4052 gwkkwg on Skype * garethsan on AIM |