[erlang-questions] Turning rebar into a package manager

[Max Bourinov]

Hi guys,

I think is what checking out ideas of maven tool (1, 2) will be very useful
too. Those guys did a perfect tool for java which does packet and
life-cycle management very easy and predictable. I had a great experience
with it and it did saved a lot of my time.

----
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apache_Maven
2. http://maven.apache.org/

Best regards,
Max




On Fri, Oct 19, 2012 at 2:36 PM, Joe Armstrong <erlang@REDACTED> wrote:

> Here is a programming exercise ...
>
> I think we can turn rebar into a package manager with 4 simple and one not
> so
> simple tweaks.
>
> This would turn rebar from being something that is very useful to something
> that is very very useful :-)
>
>
> (aside - I'm revising my Erlang book, and I'd like to describe
> how package management works, but there is no package manager
> which is a shame - so I got to thinking about package managers
> and wondered why still don't have a decent package manager.
>
> The one I've seen that I like a lot is npm (node package manager)
> so we could do worse than follow their design)
>
> So this is how I think rebar could become a package manager
>
>
> Tweak 1
> =======
>
>    > rebar get-deps
>
> Fetches the dependencies in rebar.conf and stores them in
> the current directory, in a directory called deps.
>
> After a while you get dependencies scattered all over the place,
> I've seen many examples of this.
>
> This means that there is no central place to go and look if you
> want to find code.
>
> NPM sticks ALL dependencies under ${HOME}/.npm
>
> Suggestion:
>
>    All dependencies should be stored in ${HOME}/.erl_packages
>
>    (Aside - if we followed npm the directory structure would be
>     something like)
>
>    ${HOME}/.erl_packages/cowboy/6.2.1/src
>                                                                /ebin
>                                                      /5.2.3
>                         /stdlib/12.3.1
>                                /14.6.8
>
>    etc. ie a package/Vsn/src ... structure
>
>
> Tweak 2
> =======
>
>    move rebar.config to ${HOME}/.erl_packages/rebar.config
>    and add commands to automatically edit it
>
>    > rebar add_package foo
>
>    might add a line like
>    {foo, ".*", "git://...."}
>
>    to rebar.config
>
>    The point here is to change the content of rebar.config with
>    shell commands rather that editing it by hand
>
> Tweak 3
> =======
>    fix rebar so it just downloads a particular version of a
>    program and not all the .git stuff - most people will only
>    want to use other peoples code, not hack it.
>
> Tweak 4
> =======
>
> Fix the erlang load paths to find all the dependencies
>
> I do this now. Put all my dependencies in
> ${HOME}/nobackup/erlang_imports/deps and put the following
> code in my .erlang startup file
>
>   Home = os:getenv("HOME").
>   Dir = Home ++ "/nobackup/erlang_imports/deps",
>   case file:list_dir(Dir) of
>      {ok, L} ->
>          lists:foreach(fun(I) ->
>                                Path = Dir ++ "/" ++ I ++ "/ebin",
>                                code:add_path(Path)
>                        end, L);
>     _ ->
>         void
>   end.
>
> Tweak 5
> =======
>    This can't be done by rebar
>    Make an index of all erlang apps on github that follow
>    the erlang packaging structure
>
>    Somebody has to write a program to do this.
>
>    The package index should be at a well know URL
>
>    > rebar get_index
>
>
>    This should fetch the  index from the well-know URL and store in
>    ${HOME}/.erl_packages
>
>
>    > rebar search XXX
>
>    would search the fetched index
>
>    > rebar add XXXX
>
>    would take the index entry add it to the config fill fetch the code
>    and compile it
>
> Note the following:
>
> 1) The trust model.
>
>    We trust the supplier of a program not the program.
>
>    So for example on github we might trust programs
>    published by the user joearms (me) or erlang (the OTP release)
>    but not by some_guy_ive_never_hear_of
>
>    It would be quite easy to add a trust section to rebar.config
>
>    {trust, ["git://joearms", git://erlang", ...]}
>
> 2) There is no "publish" step
>
>    We put our code on github (or somewhere) and hope that it gets indexed
>    by the indexer.
>
>    We might mail the indexer if it is published in an obscure place.
>
>   Comments?
>
>    Cheers
>
> /Joe
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