[darcs-users] GHC package for darcs

Martin Pool mbp at sourcefrog.net
Fri Sep 24 02:10:15 UTC 2004


On 23 Sep 2004, David Roundy <droundy at abridgegame.org> wrote:

> > But C is *so* last century... I'm not certain we should be encouraging
> > its continued existence.  :)
> 
> The thing is that any language can call C.  I don't imagine anyone would
> write a darcs-related application in C, but this would allow us to create a
> stable ABI--something haskell won't support otherwise.  Which would mean
> (in the long, long run) that darcs-related applications wouldn't have to be
> recompiled with every version of darcs that is released.  Also, since it
> would allow dynamical linking, we'd save on disk space and memory...

I don't think you should worry about a C or in-process API.  I'd
rather see Darcs be easy to call from scripts, by having easily
parseable output and removing any dependencies on interactive tty
input.  

This addresses many of the issues: you can call it from any language,
it does not get messed up by recompiles or internal changes, and it's
easy to write small ad-hoc scripts, which is surely the most common
usage.

People have written many useful programs that build on CVS without
ever having an in-process API: support in many editors and IDEs, web
viewers, notifiers, graphical viewers, merge tools, gateways into
other systems, etc...

I can't think of anything that needs an in-process API, and I want to
suggest you shouldn't add one unless there's an application that can't
be done with popen, etc.

-- 
Martin 

(Hey, how about a Darcs paper or tutorial at LCA?)

linux.conf.au 2005 - http://lca2005.linux.org.au/ - Call For Papers now open!
April 18th to 23rd -   Canberra, Australia        -       closes on October 5
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