[Haskell-cafe] Re: ANNOUNCE: Utrecht Haskell Compiler (UHC) -- first release

[Achim Schneider]

Edward Middleton <emiddleton at bebear.net> wrote:

> Achim Schneider wrote:
> > Edward Middleton <emiddleton at bebear.net> wrote:
> >
> >   
> >>> ghc 6.8.3 is /usr/bin/ghc on my office Mac, but nothing in the
> >>> world prevents there being some other program called ghc that
> >>> would also like to be there.  Only by painstaking verification of
> >>> a whole bunch of applications together can one be confident of
> >>> "safety". 
> >> Well then I guess we agree,  so the question becomes who should do
> >> the painstaking verification.  I think distribution maintainers
> >> should do this, you think end users who can't compile source
> >> packages should do this.
> >>     
> 
> > Not the maintainers, but the tool. Portage doesn't install stuff if
> > it would overwrite other things, records changes to files in
> > e.g. /etc to be merged later (interactively, with diffs), and
> > records every file it ever installed by having the package install
> > itself in /var/portage/<package>/<version>. You are
> > _completely_busted_ if your install script doesn't support that:
> > The script runs sandboxed.
> >
> > Portage even registers every installed package into an empty ghc
> > package database, and merges them later. It knows what it does.
> >
> > I can switch between different versions of packages, or different
> > implementations of the same functionality (say, java-sun vs.
> > java-blackdown) with eselect.
> >
> > In short: Don't write your own install scripts, you're bound to get
> > it wrong, and/or be vastly inferior, compared to portage.
> >   
> 
> But who writes the ebuild[1] ?  That said, on the various system I
> run I have over 100 custom ebuilds that I maintain.  I can do this
> because most applications have standard sane build systems that
> install things in the regular places.
> 
Yes, usually it's just a matter of writing "inherit distutils" and
figuring out (still missing) dependencies. While I utterly loathe
autoconf, it has its merit... being widely used.

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