[erlang-questions] how do you build your releases with/without rebar?

[Loïc Hoguin]

You can't run Erlang without OTP today. (You *could* after you rewrite 
half of it, and send a couple patches to OTP, but there's no alternative 
today.)

But you can run it without ssl, or diameter, or wx, or edoc... Most 
applications could be separated from the Erlang repository without much 
trouble.

I don't use git submodules or rebar so I can't say how it is for them.

Personally when I need to change the interface of a library I first make 
that change, tag a new version, then go to the applications and bump the 
dependency's version. If I need to make sure this change is improving 
the bigger application while doing it, I just create a symlink and do 
changes in both sides at the same time. The bump in the other repository 
doesn't often happen immediately. I usually want user feedback about a 
new Ranch version before I make Cowboy use it, for example.

Quick user feedback is very important. There are a lot of people who 
would gladly run the bleeding edge ssl application (for example) rather 
than the one from 3 months ago, and these people give early feedback 
that allows the ssl application to get improved faster. It's currently 
hard to use a bleeding edge version of an app that comes with Erlang, 
you pretty much have to run master or go through hoops to extract only 
the ssl application (and more hoops to keep it up to date possibly).

There's been hints from the OTP team of going in a similar direction to 
that already. Or perhaps it was just Bjorn-Egil the rebel. We'll see!

On 04/13/2014 08:02 PM, Max Lapshin wrote:
> "and will be reused in other apps"
>
> Separation of library into another repo brings new problem. Git
> submodules are a never-try-again hell, rebar has its weakness in
> managing submodules (yes, I know, pull-request or GTFO, but I haven't
> done it).
>
> So extracting library into separate repo is useful when you are going to
> reuse it into another project without other big app.
>
> Are you going to make erlang distribution without otp but with SSL?
>

-- 
Loïc Hoguin
http://ninenines.eu