glynn@info.ucl.ac.be (Kevin Glynn) writes:
> This sounds useful. But will Mogul also support multiple versions of
> packages?
it already does :-) see --packageversion (or -V for short)
> As well as the pickle version problem
there will be no such problem now that pickles can be abandonned for
ozmake packages. and for installed packages, that's precisely the
point of having multiple ~/.oz/$OZVERSION, so that Mozart versions
with incompatible pickle formats can coexist.
> there will be packages that can make use of features available in
> later versions of mozart, or that will only work with particular
> versions of Mozart.
Well, this is an awful can of worms that I don't especially wish to
open. It's a good idea to improve one's software in a way that
retains backward compatibility with earlier versions of Mozart,
e.g. by testing if a new feature is actually available on the user's
installation.
If a package has certain requirements, then these should be clearly
documented. and if only a certain version of the package works for and
earlier version of Mozart, then that too should be documented.
It's far from ideal, but doing better is really tough. I am following
the portage-ng effort: maybe they'll come up with a specification that
actually sheds some light on the subject of recursive dependency
resolution, subject to platform chracateristics and user constraints.
Cheers,
-- Denys Duchier - Équipe Calligramme - LORIA, Nancy, France - Please send submissions to hackers@mozart-oz.org and administriva mail to hackers-request@mozart-oz.org. The Mozart Oz web site is at http://www.mozart-oz.org/.