[ocaml-platform] Is this mandatory to continue this discussion [was: on the need and design of OCaml namespaces]

[Anil Madhavapeddy]

On 26 Feb 2013, at 11:22, Sylvain Le Gall <sylvain+ocaml at le-gall.net> wrote:
> 
> I am not trying to imply that it is non-productive or whatever, I just
> want to focus on what is needed for the OCaml platform. If people feel
> this is mandatory, feel free to continue this discussion and ACK that
> it is required for ocaml platform. I just want to be sure that
> everyone thinks this is required.
> 
> IMHO, I think this is not mandatory and I would have expect that the
> first thread on platform list would be "what packages to choose for
> v1" or "what are the targets arch" or "what is the deadline" or "what
> is the policy for including a package in the ocaml-platform". Having
> discussion that "at best" will postpone OCaml platform v1 until
> namespaces are implemented, is somehow problematic...
> 
> The SUCCESS of the ocaml-platform is to deliver something in a few months.

Not true. The success of the Platform is to deliver something that
will be used by serious users of OCaml, and to learn from their experiences
at the same time.  We obviously don't intend to take years doing it, but
there's also no mad rush to lash something up in a few weeks.

> Voting is just a quick way to come with an actionnable item. I care
> about delivering something in the near future. If there is no obvious
> good choice (which seems to be the case), we should postpone. It will
> give time to think about the issue.

In this case voting won't lead to any actionable items. Therefore it's
largely a waste of time.  The discussion to date has been extremely
useful, however.

If you have concerns about the timeline or progress, please feel free
to contact me directly and I'll resolve any issues.  Progress has been
great in the past few months, especially with the uptake of OPAM (which
was intended to be the base control plane for future Platform releases,
hence it has support for custom compiler switches and sophisticated
constraints).

-anil