[Haskell-cafe] Can cabal be turned into a package manager?

[Andre Cunha]

Hi. I'm new here, so this may not be a good suggestion.

Janek, did you mean something like Rubygems (http://rubygems.org)? It
manages the download, installation and manipulation of Ruby packages,
called "gems". A gem can contain executable programs or libraries (just
like traditional packages, like .rpm). Rubygems also handles dependencies
between gems, and allows you to update them.

About multiple versions of the same gem: there is a gem called Bundler (
http://gembundler.com)? It allows you to create a Gemfile for your project,
describing which gem and which version you need for your project to run.
When you enter the command:

$ bundle install

It installs the required versions of the required gems, specified in your
Gemfile. When you run:

$ bundle exec <command>

It runs the <command> using the specified version of each gem. So, you can
keep multiple versions of the gems, and choose which one to use in a
particular project.


On 12 December 2012 15:16, Bardur Arantsson <spam at scientician.net> wrote:

> On 12/12/2012 06:01 PM, Janek S. wrote:
> > In the recent months there was a lot of dicussion about cabal,
> dependency hell and alike. After
> > reading some of these discussions there is a question I just have to ask:
> >
> > Why not create a package manager (like rpm or apt) for Haskell software?
> >
> > I've been using Linux for years. Software for Linux is mostly written in
> C and C++. There are
> > thousands of libraries with lots of dependencies and yet:
> > a) Linux distributions manage to have package repositories that are kept
> in a consistent state
> > b) Linux package managers can avoid dependency hell, automatically
> update to new packages, etc.
> > Linux people did it! Is there any technical issue that prevents Haskell
> people from doing exactly
> > the same thing? Or are we just having non-technical problems like lack
> of money or developers?
> >
>
> Well, one big issue is that Linux distribution packagers have control of
> the entire stack. A (hypothetical) Haskell package manager wouldn't.
>
> Typical package managers also restrict you to exactly one version of any
> given package. This can be a severe limitation for developers.
>
> (There are more issues.)
>
>
>
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-- 
Andre Cunha
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