Currently, Spoofax supports only source code dependencies. Binary dependencies can help to avoid problems caused by source code dependencies, such as long build times, duplicate library code, overlapping import paths. It would allow to migrate old Stratego libraries such as stratego-lib, stratego-sglr, stratego-gpp, stratego-xtc, stratego-aterm, stratego-sdf, and strc to Spoofax libraries.

Binary dependencies can also help with some styles of language composition, when certain features (think pretty-printer, static analyser, code generator) of a language can be built into their own artefacts.

Submitted by Guido Wachsmuth on 28 June 2016 at 12:14