I feel really, really dumb asking this. If you can explain why I am
dumb for asking this, I would appreciate it. But I can't seem to get a
good answer looking over the internet.
Common Lisp is great, I love it. I can't stop writing Lisp code. It
doesn't feel like code anymore---it's like the whole step of thinking
about syntax is gone.
What I am having the hardest time with, however, is finding packages.
Now, ASDF is wonderful, and it totally kicks butt over the tools that
CPAN has, and I enjoy it. But there are a few problems with this
process.
- It takes work to find the package you need.
- Packages don't tend to share the same dependencies, and that makes
your app bigger.
- Documentation is spotty.
- Naming is inconsistent, sometimes contradictory.
- Matching versions is difficult.
One nice feature of Python is that it comes with a set of core modules
that are tightly integrated, mostly consistent, and generally
orthogonal. Pretty much any common task you'd like to do is coded up
in one or more of those modules. These modules give you tremendous
power from the very beginning.
I wonder if something like that exists for Common Lisp. If it does,
where is it?
If not, should something like this exist? Could it exist?
Let me state this question another way. Let's say I dropped such a set
of packages on your lap today. Would you use it? Would you support it
by complaining about it, writing documentation for it, contributing
fixes to it, or adding new packages to it?
Or would you shrug your shoulders and mumble something about "This has
been tried a hundred times before..."
Jonathan Gardner wrote:
> Now, ASDF is wonderful, and it totally kicks butt over the tools that
> CPAN has, and I enjoy it.
Doesn't CPAN have the ability to make use of package versions for
dependencies?
On Apr 9, 5:08 pm, Sohail Somani <······@taggedtype.net> wrote:
> Jonathan Gardner wrote:
> > Now, ASDF is wonderful, and it totally kicks butt over the tools that
> > CPAN has, and I enjoy it.
>
> Doesn't CPAN have the ability to make use of package versions for
> dependencies?
Not sure anymore. All I remember is that it would only work for the
most trivial packages. If it involved XS, it was difficult at best to
get it working.
Sohail Somani <······@taggedtype.net> writes:
> Jonathan Gardner wrote:
>> Now, ASDF is wonderful, and it totally kicks butt over the tools that
>> CPAN has, and I enjoy it.
>
> Doesn't CPAN have the ability to make use of package versions for
> dependencies?
Yeah, but it's limited to >= some version, which means it breaks if
you're depending on v1.xx of some module while you've got v2.xx
installed. Doing that sort of thing right (or at least, better) requires
a module loading mechanism that will allow multiple versions of the same
module to be installed at the same time, and perl doesn't have one (at
least not anything that's widely used). ruby's gems have something like
that. None of them will allow you to load multiple versions in the same
program, though.
--
Joost Diepenmaat | blog: http://joost.zeekat.nl/ | work: http://zeekat.nl/