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It sounds like you're implying git submodules are actually a good thing... I think you're the first person who has implied such a thing to me before. Everyone I

It sounds like you're implying git submodules are actually a good thing... I think you're the first person who has implied such a thing to me before. Everyone I actually know agrees that submodules are basically never the right solution or a pleasant solution. But, to your question, no. Where would the submodules even point? The dependency source code artifacts are stored "immutably" (except for takedown notices or extreme abuse cases) on https://crates.io https://crates.io. They aren't git repos, and there's nowhere for git to point.

jcelerier 6y ago
> Everyone I actually know agrees that submodules are basically never the right solution or a pleasant solution. I generally prefer submodules to other solutions as I tend to fix / change a lot of stuff in the libraries that I'm using
- saurik 6y ago
  Yeah: using submodules makes maintaining vendor patches (which, FWIW, I pretty much don't do and will move mountains to avoid... but like, I totally appreciate why people do them) really natural and easy. Like, you don't just want a copy of the code: you want to be able to participate in the development of the upstream code with the same level of tooling that they have, and submodules does that.
  - steveklabnik 6y ago
    The approach here would be to declare the dependency on the git repo directly. Vendoring is still going to copy the stuff you're building into your project, but you'd keep those patches in the repository of the dependency, not on your vendored copy.
    - saurik 6y ago
      The key thing here is being able to do it through multiple levels of dependency, for which I see someone else provided me an answer that is actionable! \o/
saurik 6y ago
People definitely have strong opinions on submodules, but it is nowhere near so one-sides: a ton of people hate them, and a ton of people swear by them. FWIW, all of the Rust libraries I use are available as git repositories. With many other package managers, I can tell them "don't use the upstream copy from the package repo: use the copy I have in this folder" in a trivial manner. I thereby don't really want "automation" around either downloading the code for me to mirror or for the submodules I want: I want to set it up and then configure it so it is all "honored"... and I could totally see the feature you talking about somehow only working one way (with automatic copies) instead of being flexible.
- steveklabnik 6y ago
  Rust also lets you do that trivially, by saying "hey here is where the folder is".
- Ar-Curunir 6y ago
  Rust allows you to override dependencies via the patch directive in your Cargo.toml: https://doc.rust-lang.org/edition-guide/rust-2018/cargo-and-crates-io/replacing-dependencies-with-patch.html https://doc.rust-lang.org/edition-guide/rust-2018/cargo-and-...

jcelerier 6y ago

> Everyone I actually know agrees that submodules are basically never the right solution or a pleasant solution. I generally prefer submodules to other solutions as I tend to fix / change a lot of stuff in the libraries that I'm using

saurik 6y ago
Yeah: using submodules makes maintaining vendor patches (which, FWIW, I pretty much don't do and will move mountains to avoid... but like, I totally appreciate why people do them) really natural and easy. Like, you don't just want a copy of the code: you want to be able to participate in the development of the upstream code with the same level of tooling that they have, and submodules does that.
- steveklabnik 6y ago
  The approach here would be to declare the dependency on the git repo directly. Vendoring is still going to copy the stuff you're building into your project, but you'd keep those patches in the repository of the dependency, not on your vendored copy.
  - saurik 6y ago
    The key thing here is being able to do it through multiple levels of dependency, for which I see someone else provided me an answer that is actionable! \o/

saurik 6y ago

People definitely have strong opinions on submodules, but it is nowhere near so one-sides: a ton of people hate them, and a ton of people swear by them. FWIW, all of the Rust libraries I use are available as git repositories. With many other package managers, I can tell them "don't use the upstream copy from the package repo: use the copy I have in this folder" in a trivial manner. I thereby don't really want "automation" around either downloading the code for me to mirror or for the submodules I want: I want to set it up and then configure it so it is all "honored"... and I could totally see the feature you talking about somehow only working one way (with automatic copies) instead of being flexible.

steveklabnik 6y ago
Rust also lets you do that trivially, by saying "hey here is where the folder is".
Ar-Curunir 6y ago
Rust allows you to override dependencies via the patch directive in your Cargo.toml: https://doc.rust-lang.org/edition-guide/rust-2018/cargo-and-crates-io/replacing-dependencies-with-patch.html https://doc.rust-lang.org/edition-guide/rust-2018/cargo-and-...