[opam-devel] News on OPAM development

[Louis Gesbert]

Hi all,

Here is some news on OPAM development: I have been a bit quiet on this list since 1.1.1, but I was indeed very busy working on the next version.

OPAM has seen a _lot_ of changes since 1.1.1: not all very visible, but there has been a lot of refactorings, rewritings and consolidations. As a result, reports and error messages should be much clearer and useful: we have been focusing on UI, with for example a rewritten parser storing file positions, and a whole new computation of the explanations for the solver proposed actions. The interactions with the external solver have also been much improved.

The processing of the package actions (install, remove, etc.) is also more solid, with all downloads done first, and overall there was a lot of effort put into improving the behaviour in case of interruption or error.

In these rewrites, I have also been planning for future evolutions ; there are also some new features, like for example a simple way to enable OPAM to run an OPAM binary updated from within OPAM.

You may check the CHANGES file [1] for more details.

In order to classify the different targets and features, I am experimenting with Trello [2]. You are welcome to check it out and comment.


You should expect a Beta of OPAM 1.2.0 with all this in the coming weeks.

Cheers,
Louis


[1] https://github.com/ocaml/opam/blob/master/CHANGES
[2] https://trello.com/b/IbjdIZbL/opam