Re: [Caml-list] [ANNOUNCE] otags reloaded 3.12.1 for OCaml 3.12.1

[Hendrik Tews <tews@os.inf.tu-dresden.de>]

Stéphane Glondu writes:
   
   I recommend you to subscribe to debian-ocaml-maint.
   
Done.

   Ask for membership to pkg-ocaml-maint on Alioth.

OK, I'll do this in the next days.

   I recommend you to have a look at [1].

I looked at the wiki and also at the ocaml-policy and the
ocaml-reference. However, I had the impression that the
information there is slightly outdated. Moreover, I was not able
to make much sense of the information there, because I am
probably missing a lot of background information (basic
experience with git-buildpackage, for instance).

   > Otags works on the internal abstract syntax tree. It has to
   > be changed with every major release. My new otags contains
   > the camlp4 parsers internally. It is very likely that they
   > will produce syntax errors with 3.13 sources. Further, with
   > non-standard syntax extensions, otags uses an external
   > camlp4 for parsing, which sends the ast back as marshaled
   > value (printer DumpCamlp4). This cannot work with a
   > different major version.
   
   I don't see the point of putting this check in dependencies

If somebody manages to install a debian package of otags 3.12
(which was compiled with ocaml 3.12) together with ocaml 3.11 or
3.13 then he can see crashes or other kinds of wired behavior,
because, once compiled, otags 3.12 is not compatible with ocaml
3.11 or 3.13. That's why I believe the dependencies need to be
there.

   (or in ./configure for that matter). It puts a useless burden
   on whoever will update the package. An explicit failure
   pointing directly at what needs to be fixed is much more
   useful IMHO.
   
Otags is a bit different from other applications, because it
works on the internal syntax tree of the compiler. It is not
enough to get it compiled with a new ocaml version. One has to
look at the changes in the syntax tree and add new rules for tag
generation for new kinds of syntax. Hopefully, the restriction in
the configure script makes it clear that there is more needed
than just recompiling.


Bye,

Hendrik