[Openmcl-devel] asdf-install and asdf in the openmcl distributions

[Gary Byers]

On Sat, 17 Jan 2004, Camille Troillard wrote:

> I vote for including it too !
> If you look at PLT Scheme, they have a way to distribute/install
> libraries easily.  MOst of the Lisps lack this and I found it was a
> very good idea to have it included in SBCL.  Then I was confused that
> OpenMCL don't have these very useful tools ...
>

I'm not arguing against including this package (or anything else deemed
to be a "useful tool") with distributions.  I do have some questions
about doing that.

  - what version of asdf-install should be included ?
  - what else does it depend on, and what versions of those things ?
    (I assume ASDF in this case)
  - quite reasonably, the README file for asdf-install discusses
    using it with SBCL.  Should a README.OpenMCL file be added,
    that at least points people to the HTML documentation in the
    portable version ?
  - I'd personally agree that many people would find asdf-install
    useful.  Exactly which things are so useful that they should
    be bundled, and how should that be decided ?

There may be simple answers to these questions, and the fact that
I'm asking them may just indicate that I haven't thought enough
about these issues.  If people have thought about these things,
I'd appreciate hearing their opinions.