On Thu, May 16, 2002 at 12:52:55PM +0200, Denis Barbier wrote:
> This is exactly why installing modules under /usr/local/lib/ocaml/3.04/
> makes sense: when you upgrade to 3.05, you can recompile only the
> modules you want now, and let less used modules survive in
> /usr/local/lib/ocaml/3.04/. If ocaml 3.05 also search files under
So you are proposing to follow the python way.
This is really a big decision for we debian ocaml guys.
Personally I think that ideally is a good idea but that practically is
useless. These are my reasons:
- python way is a mess and requires user knowledge of what is going on
regarding the debian python policy
- Python language changes between 2.0, 2.1 and 2.2 are such that they
suggests to keep different version of the interpreter while ocaml
language changes are smaller than those between versions
- versioning is not really usefull for the final user! I think that the
only situation in which the user may need different version of
compiled ocaml source is if we find an ocaml package or library that
doesn't work with a new upstream ocaml version. Such a situation can
be better handled fixing the problem than keeping an old version (and
almost useless if it's a library!)
> > Current upstream policy and (strong) recomendation on this is to rebuild
> > everything once a new version of ocaml is released (your upgrade), so
> > this does not make sense anyway. If it is only a minor change, then it
> > is handled transparently anyway.
>
> I don't understand the last sentence, could you please explain to me how
> it is handled?
All compiled ocaml objects carry a magic identifier and can be linked
only between objects with the same magic id and by a compiler of the
right version.
Current upstream OCaml policy provides that, at each release of ocaml,
all libraries will be rebuilt using the new compiler.
Regarding the last sentence, I think that Sven would mean that no
compilation incompatibility will usually arise. (If you are asking:
"OCaml new releases aren't backward compatibile?" the answer is "not
always" :-( )
> Sure, but it is nice to have a constructive discussion, it seems to
> seldom happen on Debian ML at the moment ;)
We are just changing this trend! :-)
[ or do you prefer to talk about RMS's girlfriend? { see debian-devel
for understading the quoting } :-]
Cheers.
--
Stefano Zacchiroli - undergraduate student of CS @ Univ. Bologna, Italy
zack@cs.unibo.it | ICQ# 33538863 | http://www.cs.unibo.it/~zacchiro
"I know you believe you understood what you think I said, but I am not
sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant!" -- G.Romney
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