[darcs-users] Fast import/export, contrib packages & hashed-storage

[me at mornfall.net]

Hi,

since there was a sort of consensus about keeping the import/export
functionality external to darcs, i.e. create a new hackage package, I ran into
an interesting issue now.

The problem is the libdarcs hashed-storage dependency. The import/export code
uses functionality of hashed-storage directly, and in fact requires a newer
version of hashed-storage than libdarcs currently admits (even though it's not
been released to hackage).

So there are basically two options: either all the contrib packages adhere to
the hashed-storage lockstep policy and releasing new contrib packages runs even
more risk of requiring a new (lib)darcs release, or we, afterall, relax the
lockstep dependency on hashed-storage.

I would actually prefer the latter, since linking libdarcs is quite a hassle
already and if it gives such strict upper bounds on its dependencies, it
becomes even worse (if you happen to also use those dependencies directly).

Yours,
   Petr.

PS: Another slight issue with this specific to-be-package is the name... how
would you call it? Naming it darcs-convert would be probably quite confusing,
since there's already "darcs convert". Calling it either import or export
sucks, because it does both. Splitting the package sucks even more. Ideas?