As an alternative approach.
I really like the GHC way of layering base/standard/extended/community
packages.
http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Applications_and_libraries

Their installation/imports/link-flags are handled by a package tool called ghc-pkg. http://haskell.org/ghc/docs/7.0-latest/html/users_guide/packages.html

On top of ghc-pkg is Cabal which does net installs and building based on a declarative config file.

It seems a similar model could at least solve two problems.

  - Maintaining more modules outside of the language's std library
    as individual packages but still keeping them easily available/part of
the distribution.
    This should also help to get more people involved in development.

  - Allowing easier installation of supplementary packages from other
sources
    for rather specialized packages.
    This should lower the temptation of adding too much stuff to phobos.

martin

On Tue, 29 Mar 2011 08:55:19 +0200, Lars Tandle Kyllingstad <lars at kyllingen.net> wrote:

> On Mon, 2011-03-28 at 17:05 -0700, Walter Bright wrote:
>> Called "experimental". Into this would go proposed new Phobos modules,
>> such that
>> they will go out with dmd releases. Once they've been in use for a
>> while and
>> prove themselves, then they can be moved into std (or dropped).
>>
>> This was proposed in the n.g. and seems to be well received.
>
>
> I think it's a very good idea.  I'd prefer if we use etc or std.experimental for this, and not a new top-level package.
>
> -Lars

On 3/29/2011 6:24 PM, Martin Nowak wrote:
> As an alternative approach.
> I really like the GHC way of layering base/standard/extended/community packages.
> http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Applications_and_libraries
>
> Their installation/imports/link-flags are handled by a package tool called ghc-pkg. http://haskell.org/ghc/docs/7.0-latest/html/users_guide/packages.html
>
> On top of ghc-pkg is Cabal which does net installs and building based on a declarative config file.
>
> It seems a similar model could at least solve two problems.
>
>  - Maintaining more modules outside of the language's std library
>    as individual packages but still keeping them easily available/part of the
> distribution.
>    This should also help to get more people involved in development.
>
>  - Allowing easier installation of supplementary packages from other sources
>    for rather specialized packages.
>    This should lower the temptation of adding too much stuff to phobos.
>

Having a package installation system would be a great addition to the D ecosystem, but somebody has to write and maintain such a system. Until that happens, we have to settle for something a little more modest.

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