Found a problem: https://github.com/quicklisp/quicklisp-client/issues/68
OK, so Quicklisp was failing on older ECLs, because 1- it saw that older ECLs had an old ASDF, so it loaded its own more recent one (2.26) 2- when it loads a more recent ASDF, that invalidated the asdf-bundle part of ECL's ASDF. 3- when it further tried to (require :sockets), that failed, because require depends on asdf-bundle.
Therefore, it looks like asdf-bundle is required when upgrading ASDF on ECL for Quicklisp.
I bundled (pun intended) asdf-bundle into a single Lisp file asdf-bundle.lisp, so it's easier to deploy, either as part of ECL or of Quicklisp. Along the way, I fixed it for SBCL (some recent changes must have broken it), and tested it on SBCL and ECL:
(asdf:load-system :asdf-bundle) (trace load) (asdf:operate asdf:load-fasl-op :fare-utils)
Does what I expect from a fresh Lisp image where the fasls have been compiled already.
Now, do we want to distribute asdf-bundle.lisp as a separate system asdf-bundle.asd? Do we want to distribute it as part of asdf.asd the way we used to do asdf-ecl.lisp? Do we want to just add its contents to asdf.lisp, a growth of a bit over 10% in size, for additional functionality on many platforms and much less headaches on ECL?
—♯ƒ • François-René ÐVB Rideau •Reflection&Cybernethics• http://fare.tunes.org An anarchist is a man who is careful to always use pedestrian crossings, because he utterly detests talking with policemen. — Georges Brassens