> Obviously, assuring the correct version of dependencies is solved with the > various package managers on linuxes. I've been wanting to propose something > for assuring dependencies for neko-based haxelibs that link against external > libraries, but haven't gotten around to trying/verifying it (yet). I'm > thinking of a small tool (could be a haxelib) that interfaces to the local > package manager (or provides some installation method on platforms without a > package mgr). The tool would require metafiles for external libraries (much > like the metafiles in .debs or .rpms), containing some URLs and a list of > dependency libs. Then, > * on Windows, it would fetch the project's public win32 binary .zip and > unpack the DLLs to a haxe-specific LDPATH > * on OSX, it would get the (x86 *or* ppc) fink package (a .deb) and do the > same. > * on linuxen, it *could* interface with the local package managers (although > i'd like it to not require root privileges), or alternatively (or as a > fallback) try to link a simple test against the specified lib and prompt the > user to install the dependency manually (if it fails). > > Such a tool could well be thought as an extension to haxelib. It would enable > haxelibs to resolve their dependencies in platform-specific ways (and avoid > binary redistribution of things that are mostly already installed on linuxen, > like GTK). > > What do you think, is that a good idea?
I'm not so sure. Running aptget requires root access, so users would have to sudo haxelib. I prefer to have the haxelib say which libraries need to be installed, at least right now. > Then, Nicolas, could we have an official source distribution for haXe? It's > kind of essential to have for source-based package managers (like gentoo > ebuilds). I disgress compiling from CVS (if it aint neccessary). The problem is that haXe depends on several small libraries, which shouldn't be included in haXe source distribution, but are not released separately either. Nicolas -- Neko : One VM to run them all (http://nekovm.org)
