HACKER Q&A
📣 zentr1c

Whats the difference between qlot vs. ocicl? (SBCL package managers)


Can anybody explain the difference, pro and cons between qlot [1] and ocicl [2]? Both Ocicl even newer than qlot but both not wide spread. Both seem to address the problem of project-local library dependency management

By reading ocicls readme I don't really get the underlying mechanics.

Qlot I consistently had problems with getting existing cloned projects to use it. Maybe we can share our experience here?

Update: Added clpm [4] to include in comparison request.

Question derived from thread[3] where this discussion started.

[1] https://github.com/fukamachi/qlot

[2] https://github.com/ocicl/ocicl

[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41609491

[4] https://www.clpm.dev/

  👤 atgreen Accepted Answer ✓
ocicl author here. What I'm attempting to provide with ocicl is a) a system that is easier for "Enterprise" developers to work with (TLS by default, repos hosted on well-known domains that exist in enterprise firewall "allow-lists", well documented/supported solution for mirroring contents (OCI registry mirroring), etc). I occasionally work within secure, highly regulated environments, and it was pretty much impossible to use sbcl+quicklisp because of all of the security constraints. ocicl make this possible today. b) a fully transparent set of tools and processes that are not dependent on Quicklisp and for which a community of maintainers could be established. I think it's been a success on (a), and a work-in-progress for (b). qlot is also nice if all you are looking for is a way to deal with project-local library dependencies.