differently hacky idea:
since you do end up with all the packages in a repository on the filesystem, and you just want to have it do this just-in-time updating when the Packages file is accessed…
what if you list it as a normal file apt source, but you make the Packages file a FIFO?
it’s a cursed idea but I’m not sure it is any less cursed than the other options we’ve come up with.
it may or may not help to have systemd.socket manage creating the FIFO and running the service.
I went way down the rabbit hole on this one and ended up with a proof of concept that’s probably close enough to be able to wire it up: https://gitlab.com/-/snippets/3745244
I guess it didn’t end up too much code, but I’m not entirely sure it’s worth it.
(it’s after 3 AM? oh no what have I done)
Yeah, “async is a niche requirement” has long seemed weird to me. Most programs with any degree of interactivity quickly come to a point where they want more than one thing to be happening at once, and they spend some time waiting on external inputs – whether those are network packets or USB events or timers.
Purely synchronous code only suffices for that narrow and most boring category of programs that know all their inputs up-front and don’t accept any other inputs or interactions at all.
uh, because TypeScript is an object-oriented language, as are the Deno APIs? I’m not sure I understand the question.