Re: opam-repo-dev now less useful

[Thomas Gazagnaire <thomas.gazagnaire@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,

In a related area, something that I have in mind is to have a special "dev" 
version for each package, so that people can still 'opam pin mirage dev' if 
they want (instead of having to remember the git repository address). So, in 
the setting, the idea would be:
* let opam-repo-dev as is, but change the versions to "dev" and/or add "dev: 
true" in the OPAM files
* make dev version always lesser than normal versions, so that the solver will 
not pick them in normal usage
* use 'opam pin <pkg> dev' if one wants to pin a package to its dev version
* add an umbrella dev package, with hard-constraints on all the dev versions, 
so that 'opam install mirage-dev' will force install all the dev packages if 
one wants to have all the dev packages.

This will not necessary help to have more stable packages, but if you think 
it's worth doing this this can be done without too much trouble I think.

Thomas

On Feb 10, 2013, at 8:07 PM, Anil Madhavapeddy wrote:

> On 10 Feb 2013, at 18:39, David Scott <scott.dj@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> 
>> It's a fair observation that we're using the opam-repo-dev as a shortcut to 
>> avoid thinking about releases. This would indeed explain why things work 
>> just fine for us with all the dev repos, but not for casual users who opt 
>> for the stable, non-dev repos. If the 'opam pin git://' works then I say: 
>> remove the mirage/opam-repo-dev remote and let's all use the stable versions 
>> and make sure they're rock solid.
> 
> Great; I'll start removing stuff, and once Mirari has a released version, I 
> can update the website instructions.
> 
>> The xen-org/opam-repo-dev contains a bit of a backlog of unreleased stuff. I 
>> need to tidy up xenopsd (the lowest piece) and cut a release as soon as 
>> possible.
> 
> Good plan; my laptop is waiting for xenopsd too!
> 
> -a