[isabelle-dev] Future and maintainance of ~isabelle/contrib_devel at TUM NFS

[Makarius]

On Fri, 29 Jun 2012, Alexander Krauss wrote:

> So here is another implementation alternative for all this:
> - This assumes universal components.
> - Instead of Admin/components as a file with references, there is a hg 
> repository (using the largefiles extension), which evolves along with 
> Isabelle and always contains exactly the components that would now be 
> mentioned in Admin/components.
> - The Isabelle repository contains a file with the hash of the matching 
> revision in the component repository, which serves as a formal link.
> - Thus, to get a fully working installation for a given Isabelle revision, it 
> is enough to update the component repository to the matching revision, which 
> will automatically download the relevant files.

This appears to be an application of "largefiles" + "subrepositories", 
i.e. two "features of last resort" in the Mercurial terminology.


> Moreover, I am not sure if Mercurial 2.0+ can really be assumed to be 
> available everywhere. My Debian stable installation still has 1.6.4. 
> Currently, Isabelle development works just fine even with very old 
> Mercurial.

I was also aware of that problem when mentioning largefiles.  It means 
that I would have to upgrade to Ubuntu 12.04 LTS now, but officially the 
LTS -> LTS transition only starts with the first "point release" in a few 
weeks.

IIRC, the isabelle.in.tum.de server infrastructure is also using an older 
Mercurial.


 	Makarius