"Simon Marlow"
What's the purpose of the build_deps field in a PackageConfig? This seems to indicate that the PackageConfig has a lot more functionality than I thought - to me, the PackageConfig contains the information that a compiler needs to know in order to use a package at compile time (similarly for an interpreter). But the presence of build_deps seems to indicate that it's much more than this: is it supposed to contain enough information to be able to rebuild the package? Is the system supposed to be able to rebuild packages on demand? Can it downlaod and build dependencies if they aren't available?
OK... I admit that this was my original goal, and I think that's what it says in the proposal. Since then, you've mostly convinced me that PackageConfig should only be for compile-time use of a package. I still want to put something in place, probably in a different database, and later on, for rebuilding. I understand your objection that this is something that should be performed by a packaging system. Unfortunately, many platforms don't have a packaging system, and not all packages are available on every system. Those are the basic reasons that I think it is still worthwhile.
If the answers to any these questions are yes, then I have the feeling that a large can of worms has been opened.
Maybe opened, but just a little bit so I could peak inside ;) peace, isaac