Feature Requests

[q-uint]

Here are some feature requests that would greatly improve the functionality of the Vessel package manager (from my perspective):

• The sources command should not attempt to install packages. This can sometimes cause issues with Vessel when using it offline. It would be better if sources only fetched the package source code and did not try to install anything.

• Private repository support has been requested previously in issue #62. It would be great to have the ability to use private repositories in Vessel.

• Monorepo support would be very helpful. It would be nice if the repository could declare custom subpackages, or if users could do it themselves. This would make it easier to manage large codebases with multiple packages. (#38)

• Autodiscovery of dependencies would be a great addition to Vessel. If a dependency already has a vessel.dhall file, Vessel could automatically detect it and add it to the project's dependencies.

• The src dependency should be removed. This is a restriction that is not necessary and prevents Vessel from being used with other languages. Removing this restriction would make Vessel more flexible.

• A simple install command would be very useful. Vessel could autogenerate everything based on the downloaded repository, with or without a vessel.dhall file. This would make it much easier to install packages and get started with Vessel.

• Using json/yaml instead of dhall would improve usability for most users. While dhall is a powerful tool, it can be difficult to use for beginners. Providing options to use json/yaml as alternative configuration formats would make Vessel more accessible to a wider audience. (#59)

I made an experimental package manager to test some of these features out, which can be found here.