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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">My feeling is that full Windows support touches enough files that, whether it’s part of opam 1.3 or something later, OS agnosticism in general is probably worth an entire
release on its own, just to stop the carpet from moving under you? It’ll be very boring for most opam users (well, except for a few hopefully happy Windows users!), but possibly easier to manage?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif""><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">I haven’t had a chance in the last few weeks to work on ‘my’ Windows port (I was doing some work to detect the build tools environment correctly for opam switch to allow
switching between the 4 windows ports within the same opam installation) – hoping to squeeze a day or two in over the Christmas break and then publish.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif""><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">I’m not very good at extracting git metrics, but my branch (at present from 954d29f, but I’ll rebase before publishing) contains 32 commits touching/adding 45 or so source
files and changing/adding 2000 lines.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif""><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif""><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">David<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif""><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"">From:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif""> opam-devel [mailto:opam-devel-bounces@lists.ocaml.org]
<b>On Behalf Of </b>Louis Gesbert<br>
<b>Sent:</b> 17 December 2014 10:08<br>
<b>To:</b> opam-devel@lists.ocaml.org<br>
<b>Subject:</b> [opam-devel] OPAM Roadmap -- what next ?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt"><span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"">Hi all,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;-qt-paragraph-type:empty;-qt-block-indent:0">
<span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Courier New""> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;-qt-block-indent:0;-qt-user-state:0"><span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"">with some lag after the 1.2 release, I'd like to open some space for a collective discussion of the priorities for where
the energies should go next. We have mainly 3 directions for improvements: first, portability, with the main goal of a Windows version. Second, agnosticity, with the goal to make OPAM more generic, and try and open it to users outside of the OCaml community
(wouldn't OPAM for Haskell be fun ?). Third, there are always lots of features and improvements that have been asked for, and would improve the experience of current users.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;-qt-paragraph-type:empty;-qt-block-indent:0">
<span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Courier New""> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;-qt-block-indent:0;-qt-user-state:0"><span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"">So here is a summary of what I've gathered. Feel free to add your own.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;-qt-paragraph-type:empty;-qt-block-indent:0">
<span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Courier New""> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;-qt-paragraph-type:empty;-qt-block-indent:0">
<span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Courier New""> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;-qt-paragraph-type:empty;-qt-block-indent:0">
<span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Courier New""> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;-qt-block-indent:0;-qt-user-state:0"><span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"">## Portability<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;-qt-paragraph-type:empty;-qt-block-indent:0">
<span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Courier New""> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;-qt-block-indent:0;-qt-user-state:0"><span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"">- **Rewrite parallel command engine.** / done.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;-qt-paragraph-type:empty;-qt-block-indent:0">
<span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Courier New""> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;-qt-block-indent:0;-qt-user-state:0"><span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"">- **Native system manipulation (cp, rm, curl...).**<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;-qt-block-indent:0;-qt-user-state:0"><span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"">These are mostly done through calls to the shell or external programs. It's<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;-qt-block-indent:0;-qt-user-state:0"><span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"">not very pretty but quite pragmatic actually... until we want to run on<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;-qt-block-indent:0;-qt-user-state:0"><span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"">Windows without Cygwin. Anyway, this wouldn't be the end of portability<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;-qt-block-indent:0;-qt-user-state:0"><span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"">issues.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;-qt-paragraph-type:empty;-qt-block-indent:0">
<span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Courier New""> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;-qt-block-indent:0;-qt-user-state:0"><span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"">- **Windows support.**<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;-qt-block-indent:0;-qt-user-state:0"><span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"">for OPAM itself to begin with. This should be pretty close.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;-qt-paragraph-type:empty;-qt-block-indent:0">
<span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Courier New""> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;-qt-block-indent:0;-qt-user-state:0"><span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"">- **Packages on Windows.**<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;-qt-block-indent:0;-qt-user-state:0"><span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"">Locate common issues and attempt to find generic fixes.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;-qt-paragraph-type:empty;-qt-block-indent:0">
<span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Courier New""> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;-qt-block-indent:0;-qt-user-state:0"><span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"">- Allow **direct use of more solvers** or solver servers.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;-qt-paragraph-type:empty;-qt-block-indent:0">
<span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Courier New""> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;-qt-block-indent:0;-qt-user-state:0"><span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"">- **Support cross-compilation**<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;-qt-block-indent:0;-qt-user-state:0"><span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"">This is quite an open issue at the moment.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;-qt-paragraph-type:empty;-qt-block-indent:0">
<span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Courier New""> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;-qt-block-indent:0;-qt-user-state:0"><span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"">## Agnosticity<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;-qt-paragraph-type:empty;-qt-block-indent:0">
<span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Courier New""> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;-qt-block-indent:0;-qt-user-state:0"><span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"">- **Isolate OCaml-specific stuff.**<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;-qt-block-indent:0;-qt-user-state:0"><span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"">E.g. specific opam-file variables. See ocaml-specific.md<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;-qt-paragraph-type:empty;-qt-block-indent:0">
<span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Courier New""> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;-qt-block-indent:0;-qt-user-state:0"><span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"">- **Separate as plugins**<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;-qt-block-indent:0;-qt-user-state:0"><span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"">To open the gate to OPAM without these plugins, or with other ones<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;-qt-paragraph-type:empty;-qt-block-indent:0">
<span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Courier New""> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;-qt-block-indent:0;-qt-user-state:0"><span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"">- **Compilers as packages.**<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;-qt-block-indent:0;-qt-user-state:0"><span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"">This should mostly work now, but needs some tests and strengthening. The main<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;-qt-block-indent:0;-qt-user-state:0"><span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"">thing still to do is to handle the system compiler changes properly ; that<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;-qt-block-indent:0;-qt-user-state:0"><span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"">part should be made more generic anyway (see discussion on hooks)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;-qt-paragraph-type:empty;-qt-block-indent:0">
<span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Courier New""> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;-qt-block-indent:0;-qt-user-state:0"><span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"">## Features<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;-qt-paragraph-type:empty;-qt-block-indent:0">
<span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Courier New""> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;-qt-block-indent:0;-qt-user-state:0"><span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"">- A **provides** field. Generally useful, but particulary so with<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;-qt-block-indent:0;-qt-user-state:0"><span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"">compilers-as-packages<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;-qt-paragraph-type:empty;-qt-block-indent:0">
<span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Courier New""> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;-qt-block-indent:0;-qt-user-state:0"><span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"">- Releasing the **"features" field** for easier package configuration<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;-qt-paragraph-type:empty;-qt-block-indent:0">
<span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Courier New""> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;-qt-block-indent:0;-qt-user-state:0"><span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"">- **Track installed files**<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;-qt-paragraph-type:empty;-qt-block-indent:0">
<span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Courier New""> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;-qt-block-indent:0;-qt-user-state:0"><span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"">- **Improve security**: just checking md5s is quite light ; package scripts can<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;-qt-block-indent:0;-qt-user-state:0"><span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"">write anywhere<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;-qt-paragraph-type:empty;-qt-block-indent:0">
<span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Courier New""> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;-qt-block-indent:0;-qt-user-state:0"><span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"">- **OS-specific handling of dependencies** (eg dependencies on packages from the<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;-qt-block-indent:0;-qt-user-state:0"><span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"">OS) with plugins (#1519)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;-qt-paragraph-type:empty;-qt-block-indent:0">
<span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Courier New""> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;-qt-block-indent:0;-qt-user-state:0"><span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"">- Specify and implement **hooks**<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;-qt-paragraph-type:empty;-qt-block-indent:0">
<span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Courier New""> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;-qt-block-indent:0;-qt-user-state:0"><span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"">- Find a nicer way to **share dev repos** / undoable "pinning sources"<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;-qt-paragraph-type:empty;-qt-block-indent:0">
<span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Courier New""> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;-qt-block-indent:0;-qt-user-state:0"><span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"">- **Per-switch remotes**<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;-qt-paragraph-type:empty;-qt-block-indent:0">
<span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Courier New""> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;-qt-block-indent:0;-qt-user-state:0"><span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"">- **Multi-switch packages**<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;-qt-paragraph-type:empty;-qt-block-indent:0">
<span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Courier New""> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;-qt-block-indent:0;-qt-user-state:0"><span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"">- Support for (automatic generation of) **binary packages**<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;-qt-paragraph-type:empty;-qt-block-indent:0">
<span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Courier New""> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;-qt-block-indent:0;-qt-user-state:0"><span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"">- Nicer **ocamlfind interaction**<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;-qt-paragraph-type:empty;-qt-block-indent:0">
<span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Courier New""> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;-qt-paragraph-type:empty;-qt-block-indent:0">
<span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Courier New""> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;-qt-paragraph-type:empty;-qt-block-indent:0">
<span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Courier New""> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;-qt-block-indent:0;-qt-user-state:0"><span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"">Cheers,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;-qt-block-indent:0;-qt-user-state:0"><span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"">Louis Gesbert<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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