Re: Prism build attempts
On 07/16/2011 05:36 AM, Andreas Tille wrote:
Just a wild guess without having any look into the code: What about
creating a separate build tree with symlinks with the extension we need?
Meta question: Isn't it a bug of CLISP if it does not work with the
extensions that are used by other compilers?
I haven't looked into this but it may be a defect of defsystem, not
CLISP. There is no standard extension for either source or compiled
code, so it can't be called a bug. A possibly better way to deal with
this is to use common-lisp-controller or asdf instead of defsystem.
There should be a way to
rename the files in the install script, but this can't be 100%
automatic, as the user might have more than one Lisp system
installed...so which one should the install use?
If we reduce our considerations to a Debian system: How many different
LISP systems which are able to work with the Prism code do we really
have?
At least two, CLISP and SBCL (Steel Bank Common Lisp). Possibly GCL,
not clear if that is still used or supported.
I think it is best for
the install NOT to do any compiling or binary building, but include
clear directions for the user, which would include renaming the files
according to which lisp he/she uses. This is the normal practice with
Lisp software, until the ANSI standard is revised to say something about
it.
As an obvioss non-expert I would consider this as totally contrary what
Debian users can expect. On Debian you install a package and once this
is finished you can fire up the programm. This is what our users expect
(recently I was totally confused when I had to deal with a SuSE system
and after installing the apache rpm no apache was running - I felt
totally strange to be forced to call the init.d script.)
I understand, but there is also an underlying US legal issue, regarding
US FDA regulation of the distribution of medical devices. This applies
potentially also to PLUNC. I'll try to contact someone I know at the
FDA to get this clarified.
So *if* we follow your advise to ship source code only I would
definitely vote for handling everything in a postinst script. If there
would be different LISP compilers available in Debian which could be
used we could ask for the compiler to use in a DebConf question and than
the script should just do its job to make prism ready to run. At least
this is my feeling about this. Discussing this on the Debian Lisp list
with those Debian LISP experts might be useful to clarify how others are
handling this.
I could not find a Debian LISP list - can you provide a pointer? Would
love to be lurking there too...
Alternately, I could modify defsystem to be more clever...or write
some simpler and better code than defsystem...maybe this will be
reasonable once I reorganize the code into separate modules.
Modularising the code and building packages from this would be
reasonable in any way.
Yes, see above about clc and asdf also.
Kind regards
Andreas.
Best regards,
Ira
Reply to: