Flix build system

questions.md

To integrate the Flix language into existing JVM language projects, I want to try to make a Gradle plugin to build, test, and package source codes written in Flix. To judge its possibility, and design its API, I want to ask the following questions:

1. Is it encouraged to deploy .fpkg files onto Maven Central or other registries?

   • I guess it is not. The latest Packager provides an installation mechanism which relies on GitHub project.
   • Probably the Flix is going to provide a golang-like module system? If so, is there any file to manage dependencies like go.mod?

2. Will Flix build system supports multiple kinds of dependnecy scope?

   • Java build tools such as Maven and Gradle provides compile, runtime, provided, api, implementation, test, and system etc.
   • It is complex but valuable to minimize API surface and to stop depending on test harness (e.g. JUnit, JMockit) in production code.
   • For me, it seems that Flix is not considering the scope separation for now.

Current idea

If my hypothesis is correct, design for Gradle plugin will be like below:

plugins {
  id("jp.skypencil.flix")
}
configure<FlixExtension> {
  compilerVersion.set("0.25.0")
  sourceSets {
    main {
      flix {
        setSrcDirs(listOf("src/main/flix"))
      }
    }
    test {
      flix {
        setSrcDirs(listOf("src/test/flix"))
      }
    }
  }

  // Do not use Gradle built-in dependency management, because we do not rely on registries like Maven Central.
  dependencies {
    require("owner/repo@v1.2.3") // or "owner:repo:v1.2.3" like Maven?
    require(files("lib/*.fpkg")) // for migration
  }
}
java {
  toolchain {
    languageVersion.set(JavaLanguageVersion.of("17"))
  }
}

defaultTasks("compileFlix", "testFlix", "jar", "fpkg")
// todo: Does `src/main/java` depends on `src/main/flix`, or opposite?

References

1. "The package manager does not yet support dependency resolution" according to Build and Package Management