> How does it do this? Just a list of known packages and their dependencies, or?
It checks a known registry or reads package metadata.
> I'm using https://github.com/LaurentMazare/tch-rs/ (rust bindings for pytorch's c++ api). Depending on the hardware I'm building for I either need to download a cpu build of pytorch, or a cuda build of pytorch. How would this work with riff?
Riff doesn't track which GPU you use at this time, so it can't track that which build of `pytorch` to use, sorry. It might be something we make it aware of if we have enough evidence it would be helpful.
> Is there any hope of a good cross compiling story? If so, that would be awesome (currently I just don't even try if there are significant C dependencies)!
Regarding cross compiling: We've spoken about it, and I certainly believe it would be desirable. I imagine it would come in a later version. We've taken some steps to ensure we don't rule out that feature later.
> How thoroughly are dependencies cached? Backed to the pytorch example it's a fairly big (and thus slow) download, I don't want that happening too frequently.
Dependencies are cached by Nix, so they should not become invalidated very often. If your tempdir erases we may lose the generated lock file (We've been discussing where to place these perhaps more permanently) which may force another download if there was an update.
Still need to install java and get the software installed and working. Was a huge PITA in Linux so I ended up using a windows boot and even that was spotty.
We don't have `++` and `--` in Rust either, and I really don't mind. The amount of times I've went to do a `++` where a `+= 1` was clutter has been perhaps one or two times.
Then again, my most common use for `++` was `for (;;) {}` index, and we have better in these new languages like Rust and Swift.
There are millions of people in this world trying to learn to code and understand the layers upon layers of cruft and quirks we've added. I don't mind the `++` or `--` operators, but I certainly don't mind them being gone either. They add extra complexity to code which is already arguably too complex.
In any case, I favor understandability over guesswork, and `++` is another odd cornercase which you have to mentally `grep` over.
It checks a known registry or reads package metadata.
> I'm using https://github.com/LaurentMazare/tch-rs/ (rust bindings for pytorch's c++ api). Depending on the hardware I'm building for I either need to download a cpu build of pytorch, or a cuda build of pytorch. How would this work with riff?
Riff doesn't track which GPU you use at this time, so it can't track that which build of `pytorch` to use, sorry. It might be something we make it aware of if we have enough evidence it would be helpful.
> Is there any hope of a good cross compiling story? If so, that would be awesome (currently I just don't even try if there are significant C dependencies)!
Regarding cross compiling: We've spoken about it, and I certainly believe it would be desirable. I imagine it would come in a later version. We've taken some steps to ensure we don't rule out that feature later.
> How thoroughly are dependencies cached? Backed to the pytorch example it's a fairly big (and thus slow) download, I don't want that happening too frequently.
Dependencies are cached by Nix, so they should not become invalidated very often. If your tempdir erases we may lose the generated lock file (We've been discussing where to place these perhaps more permanently) which may force another download if there was an update.