[Nix-dev] Documentation about different language support?

[Eelco Dolstra]

Hi,

Marc Weber wrote:

> It would be nice to just have some small general information about how
> language support is implemented in nix.

Nix itself doesn't have any support for specific languages, so builders are
completely free to use any layout they want under $out.  Fortunately, most Unix
packages have a more-or-less standard layout - "./configure --prefix $out &&
make && make install" gives pretty predictable results.  But for other kinds of
packages such as Ant-based Java packages there is no standard, and the Java
packages in Nixpkgs are a bit of a miss in this respect: the JAR files are
copied to pretty ad-hoc locations.  We should definitely pick some standard
locations.

> Java:
>   $out/lib/jars/

Probably as good a location as any :-)

We should also have a generic Java builder (just like there is a generic Perl
builder) to abstract over the Ant invocation and the installation of JAR files.

> Where would the right place be to put this documentation?
> In an Appendix at the nix manual?

Yes.  Or maybe there should be a separate Nixpkgs manual.  In the meantime it
can also go into nixpkgs/maintainers/docs/.

-- 
Eelco Dolstra | http://www.cs.uu.nl/~eelco