[MLton] Re: Bug#220046: mlton: Build-Depends on itself

[aaron]

On Tue, Nov 11, 2003 at 09:38:16AM -0800, Stephen Weeks wrote:
> Hi Aaron.  As the maintainer of the Debian smlnj package, I have a
> question for you.  Does smlnj build-depend on itself?  If not, how
> does it build from source?

The current version only stabilizes already compiled CM libraries. I
am working on a version that will build itself from source by including
itself as a build-depend. Although it does seem incestuous, I think
it is the best solution. 

Another option though, is to include binaries in the source package to
bootstrap off. I don't like this option because you have to include
binaries for every architecture as part of the source distribution.

> * In order to build MLton, we need some SML compiler anyways.  Since I
>   believe SML/NJ must build-depend on itself, it doesn't make the
>   Debian world significantly less incestuous to remove MLton's build
>   dependency on itself and replace it with a dependency on another
>   incestuous compiler.

I agree. A larger circular dependency is worse than depending on
oneself.  The only way I could see depending on another SML compiler is
if that compiler was written in another lanugage such that no
dependency cycle would exist.