On 3/2/10, Tobias C. Rittweiler tcr@freebits.de wrote:

Hi folks!

I had this idea to ask implementators how they'd feel inclined about including Alexandria as part of their implementations as most nowadays do with ASDF.

Some thoughts from a relative beginner :)

I have settled upon Alexandria as my default utilities library, so I'm a happy user.

To begin with, I consider myself relatively naive about module systems. However, I think the current arrangement is (while non-ideal) almost acceptable. Why don't we wait for an effective module and "installer" system (I have faith that the day will come)? In the meantime, asdf-install, cl-build, the "libraries" projects, or tarballs (ok...maybe not?), among many other ways, has been sufficient for me.

I often reflexively avoid bundled libraries. In my experience, the problem with implementation bundled libraries is that they are often not complete enough -- older library versions, no version control, problems with stale fasls or confused versions when I upgrade manually, so there's no obvious way to upgrade or to hack on the bundled libraries.

This may be made worse if you run multiple implementations - they will have separate (possibly incompatible) copies of libraries, managed in different ways. Compatibility issues are not common, but not so rare either. So every time there's a problem, my preference (though I don't quite get there) has been to use only one "main branch" of each library on my whole pc, shared by all Lisp implementations & implementation versions. I do use (have used) boxsets grudgingly :(

For that to work, of course, there has to be Alexandria releases, and once something's officially released, backwards-compatiblity would have to be preserved. (I think there should be an official ALEXANDRIA package containing the stable API, and some -TESTBED or -BETA package with stuff being in flux, but for people to try out who are so inclined. Together with some ALEXANDRIA-VERSION<= stuff for conditionalization.)

I'd offer to step up, polish the existing code base, write tests where needed, write documentation, do releases, and try to push the things down the implementations. I'd hope that the quality of my existing libraries speak for how severe I take all these steps to produce well-rounded releases.

Nowadays, it's my impression that the only somewhat active people are Nikodemus and Attila, where Nikodemus seems to hold the power of ultimate decision making.

There are probably more who feel strongly about Alexandria so I wanted to ask you first, because it'd mean a shift of responsibility and power.

What do you think?

As a user, I welcome any extra love for Alexandria :)

Yong.