[racket-dev] package-system update

On Sun, Jul 14, 2013 at 9:29 AM, Matthew Flatt <mflatt at cs.utah.edu> wrote:
> At Sun, 14 Jul 2013 09:02:28 -0400, Sam Tobin-Hochstadt wrote:
>
> But when you run `raco pkg install' or `raco pkg update', then the
> package details are not necessarily determined by
> "pkg.racket-lang.org". The package might be downloaded as pre-built
> from someplace suitable to your specific installation.
>
> The term "package catalog" is used in the quoted text above to the
> refer to the server that `raco pkg install' consults first. The (very)
> speculative part is that the "Racket" and "Minimal Racket"
> installations might check different places first. But both kinds of
> installation would definitely include "pkg.racket-lang.org" in the set
> of catalogs that they check.

Ok, that makes sense.  Which packages are you imagining would be
served from this catalog?  Just the ones currently in the Racket
distribution? Everything that's in "ring 0" on pkg.racket-lang.org?
Some other set?

>> Finally, can you say anything about whether you anticipate the release
>> process changing?  Would it be possible to decouple the core Racket
>> releases from, say, the Typed Racket releases, with a release of the
>> whole system bundling specific versions of everything?
>
> I expect that we'll want to do that, but I'm not sure it will work well
> for all users. The idea behind the "Racket" versus "Minimal Racket"
> package-catalog speculation was that people might opt into decoupled
> releases by using the "Minimal Racket" distribution.

Just to be sure we're on the same page here, I'm thinking of something
like Gnome or the Haskell Platform, where there is a big release which
is what most people install containing lots of little packages.  Which
users do you think this might not work for, and why?

Sam