Re: Re: Making ASDF-Install ASDF-Installable

>>>>> "Tim" == Tim Daly, <Tim> writes:

    Tim> On Tue, 2005-12-20 at 10:25 +0100, Edi Weitz wrote:
    >> 
    >> I think that's something that's nice to have but actually not really
    >> worth the trouble.  My impression is that people use ASDF-INSTALL to
    >> get started but abandon it once they're familiar enough with Lisp.

    Tim> FWIW, I'm reasonably familiar with Lisp, yet I use ASDF-INSTALL all the
    Tim> time.  It's the quickest way to grab the latest version of a package and
    Tim> its dependencies.  I also think that it makes people more likely to
    Tim> release multiple small libraries, as well as to depend on libraries
    Tim> without incorporating them.  

    Tim> TBNL, for example, depended on 6 other packages last time I checked.
    Tim> Who wants to manually download, unpack, symlink, and gpg-key-check 7
    Tim> packages every time he sets up a webserver?

    Tim> Making ASDF-INSTALL ASDF-INSTALL-able is a neat idea, but a
    Tim> better goal, IMHO, is to get one right version of it that
    Tim> never changes.  It's infrastructure.  I don't upgrade ls, cp,
    Tim> mv, etc., and I don't want to have to upgrade ASDF-INSTALL.

I guess I'm less optimistic about that than you are.  I use Linux, and
periodically stuff that I thought had achieved the "one right version"
end up changing, because someone discovers some new flaw (e.g., the
format string vulnerabilities).  Expecting something to be right and
never change always seems like a dodgy strategy to me.  OTOH, the
*interface* to ls, cp, mv, etc. is stable and unchanging, and that's
pretty much enough for me.

I like the idea of an asdf-installable asdf-install, because that
seems to me to be the easiest infrastructure on which to build an
automagically-updateable asdf-install...  But I confess to not having
thought about that a lot, so maybe there's a different strategy to
achieving asdf-install (and asdf) updating.

Best,
Robert


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