Charles Wang <[email protected]> writes: > May I ask what is the difference between quicklisp and asdf-install ?
asdf-install uses a dynamically modifiable resource (cliki) to map names to library archives hosted in arbitrary locations. It uses an error trap to proceed - if an error that component "bar" is not found when loading "foo", it does a round-trip through cliki to find and load "bar". Also, when loading "foo", any file in the top-level of the archive that ends with ".asd" is loaded. asdf-install executes an external tar program to unpack its archives, and uses an external gpg program to verify its validity. There are a number of points where things can and do go wrong with this setup, including cliki vandalism, cliki outages, third-party site outages, trying to load too much (this is quite problematic with clsql), not loading enough, not having a "tar" or "gpg" program (this is quite problematic on Windows and slightly problematic on MacOS X), not having the right PGP keys, and more. Quicklisp takes a different approach of copying third-party libraries to a central location (hosted by Amazon S3 and served by their CloudFront CDN for speed), builds static indexes of metadata, and has a cross-platform client that includes a portable HTTP client and gunzip program and will include a portable OpenPGP verification program. Quicklisp knows the relationships between systems and can download exactly what you need to support the library you want to use. It knows exactly what system files and systems are available in a particular project archive so it never loads more or less than you ask for. It's not dynamically updated by a public wiki, but periodically by a maintainer (me) - this has upsides (stability, predictability) and downsides (slower to get new & updated software). It works the same way on ABCL, Allegro CL, CLISP, ClozureCL, CMUCL, ECL, LispWorks, and SBCL on Unix, Mac, and Windows. Hope this helps, Zach _______________________________________________ Gardeners mailing list [email protected] http://www.lispniks.com/mailman/listinfo/gardeners
