[erlang-questions] Erlang package manager

[Björn-Egil Dahlberg]

Hi everyone!

I would like to address some of the questions and comments in this
discussion. I will be brief and get into more details once I get back to
Stockholm.

1. The Package Manager client should (will/must) be written completely in
Erlang. There are many reasons for this. For instance, it is easier to
maintain an application written in a language we have some familiarity
with. It is a nicer fit. We can have the client the client in the bootstrap
and let it upgrade itself once downloaded. I don't think OTP can really be
satisfied with anything else than a PM written it in Erlang. =)

2. Scope it down. For starters the Package Manager should only handle
Erlang applications. Things like Erl_Interface and JInterface are the odd
one outs in the lib directory today and they don't really fit here. At
least not how I envision it. I'm sure we could jury-rig something but we
should not start there. This also mean that we should *not* handle OS
dev-libs in our package-manager. We can have a specialized description
field for such things, telling the developer he needs to install them prior
to installing an Erlang application but we should not handle it beyond that.

3. Protocols first. I saw someone mentioning this already and it made me so
happy. Protocols first is perhaps a misnomer but it is important anyway. We
have several languages that runs ontop of beam or Erlang. Elixir has its
own package manger Hex (client) and Hexweb (server) and I think it is a
good thing if we use compatible protocols. Http and restful protocols is
all the rage and I don't any reason to sidestep that. My vision here is a
common protocol bus and the client can query any server for Erlang
applications, i.e. Hex can query an Erlang Application provider for updates
and install them. I think this only affect us (Erlang) by pressuring us to
formalize our rest protocols / api .. but that is a good thing.

I hesitate to discuss the naming of this thing in fear of something
exploding. But, I will throw my hat into the race .. Gear (client) and
Gearbox (server). Gear - Erlang Application Repositories. With commands
like "gear up .." for upgrading packages and "gear down" for downgrading
them.

Great discussion, have to run,
Björn-Egil - did not review my comments before submitting.



2015-01-03 13:27 GMT+01:00 Imants Cekusins <imantc@REDACTED>:

> Well a parse transform could sanitize the config files so only acceptable
> statements are used.
>
> Maybe use a different extension for the config files.
>
> The key benefits are familiar syntax & syntax checks.
>
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