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Re: What do you wish for in an package manager?



"Dwayne C . Litzenberger" wrote:
>  I wrote.. 
> >
> >     It should be re-usable as a library for implementing packages/modules
> >     for PLs·
> 
> Erm, now I'm getting confused.  I assume you mean that this package manager
> should also be a framework for loadable modules.  Isn't that way outside the
> scope of a package manager?  Can you give me an example?

No. I don't think all the things a loader/linker does is useful here.
But I do think that in a language that supports modularity, there would
be a lot of common things a package manager ought to support.

The most obvious and important being dependency information. Which modules
use which modules? Less obvious perhaps a recursive namespace implementation.
Think subpackages. You can view a package as something that exports/imports
symbols perhaps. It doesn't have to be limited to files and directories.

What I would want to see is a more abstract view of the process. In fact, one
should view this as part of a software-engineering toolchain. It should
play nicely with a corresponding build system, config system, etc.

Off the top of my head of course. :)

Thanks,

-- 
Eray (exa) Ozkural
Comp. Sci. Dept., Bilkent University, Ankara
e-mail: erayo@cs.bilkent.edu.tr
www: http://www.cs.bilkent.edu.tr/~erayo



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