[plt-dev] Re: Generated files and co-existing copies of DrScheme

On Nov 20, Carl Eastlund wrote:
> 
> Re: command line argument vs environment variable:
> 
> You are right, it works either way.  Since we already have
> environment variables to control this kind of thing, I went with
> another environment variable.  I don't think having two things
> controlled via enviroment and one via command line is going to be
> somehow less confusing than having three environment variables.  If,
> some day, we overhaul this configuration system, I have no problem
> with going to all command line arguments (or just one switch, as a
> command line argument).

The general good direction, IMO, is to avoid environment variables as
much as possible.  So if you want to add a new knob, doing that with a
command line argument has better chances of being useful and of
staying around.  Do you have any *concrete* point for preferring an
environment variable over a command-line argument?


> First, do we want to redesign our local configuration system,
> addressing issues of how directory trees are laid out, what options
> users have, and how users express choices.  This will take careful
> design, time to implement, and a decision of how to deal with the
> fact that it will almost certainly break existing configurations.

This was mostly done, with the new command line arguments and with
changes that happened in the past.  PLTCOLLECTS might be more
difficult to pull out, but I won't cry when this is done.


> Re: nightly build:
> 
> This doesn't solve my problem, because nightly builds do not include
> planet packages,

Of course, but I talked about building the PLT tree itself, which is a
conserable chunk of work that you don't need to do.


> and a new nightly build will still clobber the local planet and
> scribble files of an older one with the same version.

How?

-- 
          ((lambda (x) (x x)) (lambda (x) (x x)))          Eli Barzilay:
                    http://barzilay.org/                   Maze is Life!