On Fri, Nov 2, 2012 at 8:43 AM, Duncan Coutts
*cabal build should imply cabal install --only-dependencies * If you're currently working on a package, the right [1] way to build it is as follows:
cabal install --only-dependencies cabal build
I've been thinking along similar lines recently. We should be thinking about package environments (which spans multiple packages) rather than individual packages, and the UI should reflect that. Right now it's very much centred on individual packages, not collections.
So "cabal configure" should configure/reconfigure the package environment, not the individual package. It should make an install plan for the current environment (which at minimum is a single target package and its dependencies but could be several packages in the same env). Then of course executing that install plan by building any of the targets should go and build deps as necessary.
Should I interpret this as you're in favor of the first steps towards such a change, as described above (automatically install dependencies), with a flag to opt out? -- Johan