Is there any way to avoid redundant sys::Depend in a pod? Because it looks too hard for understanding: @podDepends = [Depend("sys 1.0"), Depend("gfx 1.0"), Depend("fand 1.0"), Depend("web 1.0"), Depend("webapp 1.0"), Depend("wisp 1.0"), Depend("compiler 1.0"), Depend("compilerJs 1.0")]

I believe it will be better to have something like @podDepends = Depends("sys 1.0, gfx 1.0, fand 1.0, web 1.0, webapp 1.0, wisp 1.0, compiler 1.0, compilerJs 1.0").toList

I don't really want to add a Depends class to sys - adding new classes to sys requires an extremely high bar.

Couple options:

• make podDepends Str (one big free-form string)
• make podDepends Str[] (considered this originally)

I settled on current design since it seems most inline with Fan's idioms for static typing as explicitly as possible. But I can see simplicity in using just Strings (same thing as using Uri vs File in build scripts).

I'd like to hear more feedback from others that they want to change things first though.

I don't really like free-form stuff buried in strings (that's how Java seems to be evolving these days). Is it out of the question to introduce a simplified vararg feature?

@podDepends = Depend(["sys 1.0", "gfx 1.0", "fand 1.0", "web 1.0", "webapp 1.0", "wisp 1.0", "compiler 1.0", "compilerJs 1.0"])

I've been needing that a few times now http://fandev.org/sidewalk/topic/738#c5164.

Varargs would be nice - I just don't want to tackle for 1.0 since I believe they will have complex interactions with closures, dynamic calls, etc.

In this case, I believe the heart of the issue is that podDepends is typed as a Depend[] (so I am not sure var args really help). If anything you'd want a shortcut for declaring a list of simple types:

Depend["sys 1.0", "gfx 1.0", ...]
Time["01:00", "02:00", "03:00"]

Using fromStr as a convenience for lists is an interesting idea.

@podDepends = Depend.makeList(["foo 1.0", "bar 1.2"])

Alternatively it could be Depend.fromList which could potentially be a compiler supported pattern similar to fromStr.

Having a Depend.fromListStr (or whatever it is called) would be a nice API (as opposed to language) way to handle it. Although at the same time, I am a bit worried about this particular use case because it needs to be parsed and understand by tools before a full compile - the way I am that today is a bit hackish and I don't want to make it more complex.

I hope this wouldn't be a big problem, because Depend.fromListStr shows to good advantage.