Bug#387299: [Build-common-hackers] Bug#387299: please add a class for OCaml related packages

[Stefano Zacchiroli]

On Wed, Sep 13, 2006 at 05:08:23PM +0200, Peter Eisentraut wrote:
> > It comes in two files: ocaml.mk and ocaml-vars.mk. They are both
> > attached.
> There are no attachments to your bug report.

Yes, sorry, see my follow-up.

> > With this bug report I'm both asking for inclusion of the 
> > class in CDBS and requesting comments from the CDBS gurus on how I
> > implemented it.
> One thing that strikes me as particularly odd is that the ocaml.mk file 
> I found in your svn repository doesn't contain any rules to actually 
> build anything.

That's because the OCaml community has no standardized way to build
software written in OCaml, so there isn't much to factorized in ocaml.mk
(or, if you prefer, there are too many standard way to do that :-).
Still, from the Debian POV is important to have a standardized way to do
other stuff: we have a fairly detailed policy, and a CDBS class is a way
to enforce that (part of) the policy is followed.

It is also an investment for the future: we have plan to implement
automatic testing of ocaml packages and automatic generation of HTML
documentation of ocaml libraries API. All this kind of stuff can easily
be integrated in the future in an ocaml.mk class.

> That really depends on how you want to work.  A class such as kde is 
> useful to maintain in cdbs proper because there are many kde-using 
> packages, only a few of which are maintained by the KDE team.  In fact, 
> the KDE team maintains its own extension to that class that is not 
> suitable for general consumption.  If, on the other hand, the ocaml 
> class is only used by the ocaml team, then it'd be best if the ocaml 
> team maintains it.

The ocaml class would be useful for anyone willing to maintain ocaml
stuff. Not all packages are maintained collaboratively, even if most of
them are maintained in the pkg-ocaml-maint repository (and we recommend
that).

In the latter case you advise (class maintained by the ocaml team),
would it be part of the cdbs package or not? I would like to avoid
having yet another package that should be listed as a build-depends
together with cdbs.

My opinion in the development future of ocaml.mk is that it will
probably have a burst of changes in the beginning of its life and then
will be stabilized for a loooong time before some of the changes I
mentioned above will be added. Maybe this helps you in the choice of
whether integrating it or not.

Thanks for your quick feedback!

-- 
Stefano Zacchiroli -*- Computer Science PhD student @ Uny Bologna, Italy
zack@{cs.unibo.it,debian.org,bononia.it} -%- http://www.bononia.it/zack/
If there's any real truth it's that the entire multidimensional infinity
of the Universe is almost certainly being run by a bunch of maniacs. -!-