mapping module identifiers to URLs (was RE: [Haskell] URLs in haskellmodule namespace)

[Simon Marlow]

On 30 March 2005 16:27, Ross Paterson wrote:

> [switching to libraries]
> 
> On Wed, Mar 30, 2005 at 12:02:30PM +0100, Simon Marlow wrote:
>> I don't think it's necessary to specify dependencies with module
>> granularity.  This just increases the number of possible error cases,
>> without adding functionality.  If you want to specify which module
>> imports require each package dependency, then do it with a comment. 
>> The tools can tell you if any dependencies are redundant.
>> 
>> Suppose that:
>> 
>>    - Package dependencies in Build-Depends could be specified using
>>      URLs.
> 
> That would also be redundant.  Better to keep using package names in
> dependencies, and have a catalogue mapping package names to URLs,
> either in a local file or a remote database (i.e. Hackage).

I expect the default would be to look for a package in the main Hackage
repository, so for example 'network' might be interpreted as shorthand
for 'http://haskell.org/packages/network'.  

For packages not in the main Hackage repository, there needs to be an
absolute URL somewhere: that can be in the .cabal file, or in a separate
file if you like.  If a separate file is used, then it should travel
with the package, because a package should be self-contained.

Cheers,
	Simon