Telcon: 2022 02 16

(Peter) Externals cut off dependencies: https://github.com/spack/spack/issues/9149#issuecomment-1020740273
Possible continuation from https://github.com/spack/spack/wiki/Telcon%3A-2022-01-26: vendored dependencies
- (Andrew) nvhpc installs CUDA, so which CUDA is being used if I install nvhpc with Spack?
- (Wileam) Should nvhpc be modularized like oneAPI? This would partially solve the embedded CUDA issue, I think
(Peter) Automating xcompiler for options that ought to be fed to underlying compiler for nvcc:
- See: https://github.com/spack/spack/pull/28769#pullrequestreview-880622801
Possible topic: multiple build systems
- e.g. a package changes build systems for some version
- See also https://github.com/spack/spack/pull/27021/files#diff-a69c213bdd36ddd464aa29f039985532107a6527f68c253fb5f0d204d7b462db
  - i.e. the build system is often different on Windows
- IMO this is as simple as
  - Have a when-style clause for activating a build_system
  - When the build system is active, look for e.g. cmake_install vs. install
  - Users can just define install if they only use one build system
Possible topic: Separating package repository from core
- There are some larger changes we plan which mean we can't do this immediately
- But we could record what is in the way and how to manage this transition
Possible topic: new concretizer and handling of merged package repositories
- See also: https://github.com/spack/spack/issues/28259

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