[racket-dev] package-system update

At Sun, 14 Jul 2013 09:43:13 -0400, Sam Tobin-Hochstadt wrote:
> 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?

Ring 0 (for PLT's distribution).

> >> 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?

Well, I'm not sure. My sense is that updates to main-distribution
packages could create trouble for novice users. Maybe that's not the
case, or maybe it will be the case only until we get our package
infrastructure refined.