Bug#639910: [Pkg-scala-maint] [sbt] SBT Debian packaging suspended
On 05/02/12 18:35, Josh Suereth wrote:
As I stated before, I feel requiring SBT to build without itself is
like trying to build Debian without GCC.
Comparing this situation to "trying to build _gcc_ without _gcc_" would
be a more fair comparison. (imho)
I'm sad to hear no future work will be done on official debian
packages.
Thomas has made some efforts to understand the situation. And, he isn't
saying that he will abandon the packaging effort. It is only "suspended"
due to personal reasons.
However, I strongly feel scalac + sbt are two tools that should be
able to dogfood using previous binaries. Why should we support two
builds if one is good enough? If debian developers wish to support a
make build for SBT, that's great. I'd prefer to make use of SBT when
developing SBT. I'm pretty hazy on why there's any reason on why SBT
cannot use itself to build itself for debian, redhat, macosx or any
other platform.
It is quite understanble for a compiler to have a bootstrap phase where
an old binary is used to build the new one. Usually, upstream ship an
old binary to be able to achieve that. This technique completely and
widely used. As an example, Scala uses the same technique.
The situation with sbt is a bit different. It is quite uncommon for a
build tool to bootstrap itself. TTBOMK, sbt is the only popular build
tool that does bootstrapping.
In Debian, we do not ship pre-built binaries in packages included in the
"main" archive. Thomas is trying to fix this by making an experiment:
build sbt w/o sbt. The approach seems natural but seems not easy
(especially when you don't have upstream's support).
I think that one way to resolve this issue is to do like Scala, i.e.
ship pre-built binary is the source package to be able to bootstrap sbt.
What we would like to have is a way to build sbt without requiring
internet connection or external tools (be it sbt or another library). Is
it possible to provide that? sbt would be still bootstrappable, but we
would have a standard (i.e. an upstream supported way) to build sbt
using what sbt's source package contains. I think that's the only
external build dependency here. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
If necessary, I will provide my own apt repository, signed and
validated, but built entirely with SBT to ensure we have a good story
on debian. If the debian community wants us to have a make build and
is willing to create/maintain it for SBT to be in 'core' debian,
that's wonderful. Otherwise, I'll make sure there's a nice apt
repository out there, built with sbt, for sbt.
I'm not sure I understand your point here. Do you propose to provide
what Thomas is asking for (a way to build sbt w/o sbt)? I'm quite sure
Thomas will step up to maintain that system if this is merged into sbt
sources.
Regards,
--
Mehdi
Reply to: