Re: RFC: toolenv - for dealing w/ tools' environments

Paul A writes:

> The original stuff to address this was John Furlani's "modules"
> (http://www.modules.org/) but I've never used it and I don't know
> how well it would handle the interactions that you describe. ...

I've known about 'modules' forever and a day; my worries,
perhaps unwarranted, are:

* It has spent most of its 15-years-odd life barely clinging
  to "being maintained".

* At least the main version (there is also a C version...)
  is Tcl-based; which means a good Tcl installation across
  all machines.

* Even if all of that's perfect, it is then *very* possible
  to write up your 'modules' stuff in such a way that you
  end up with "modules spaghetti" -- esp. if you give
  yourself a decade and let three or four people do the
  "maintenance" ...

Also, I guess what I really want _in my setting_ is not "a
powerful way for users to maintain their environment";
rather, I'd prefer "users never have to think about
maintaining their environment" -- they log in, it Just Works
in some sensible way.

If a user then needs to do something where tool/versions
paranoia needs to happen -- e.g. work on a particular
project -- then s/he types something special to get in the
right environment, or [my preference] the Makefile for the
project sets the environment, ignoring the users' own ideas
(except for things like EDITOR, DISPLAY, etc.).

Note that you also get a "separation of concerns" effect:
for ho-hum everyday work, the user can do what s/he wants;
all the tool-versions mess is pushed off into a specific
subsystem (in my case, Matt's version-wrapper code);
similarly, all the what-tools-need-to-see junk is pushed off
into toolenv (or some such).  I suspect that schemes of "we
will set your Unix user environment for you" tend to
collapse from having too many "requirements" to fulfil.

(Sorry if this is getting a bit off-topic for ark-dev.)

Will


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