Re: [Sbcl-devel] Alpha, HPPA support at risk
Hi Christophe
On 3/12/20 10:15 PM, Christophe Rhodes wrote:
> I would like the SBCL project to try to substantially improve, or else
> retire, support for Alpha and HPPA.
>
> At the moment, those backends in particular are kept in the source more
> for nostalgia than any other reason; and there's a problem with that,
> because the nostalgia gets in the way of improving other things, because
> of the hoops that developers need to go through to keep those backends
> compiling.
>
> Moreover, just because we have tried to keep the backends compiling
> gives no guarantee that they actually run; I'd be slightly surprised if
> they don't crash pretty quickly in cold-init.
I sent in some fixes, but so far I haven't been able to get SBCL to run
on Alpha or HPPA, both crash in cold-init. But that's also the case
for MIPS when I tested.
Generally, I try to help whereever I can but I'm by no means a Lisp
expert. There are Alpha and HPPA porters around in Debian and Gentoo
which might be interested to help.
> So, I think that the time has come to ask whether anyone needs those
> backends. You might! And if you do, we badly need your help to get the
> backend properly working and tested on a regular basis (ideally daily;
> weekly at a pinch).
There are Alpha and HPPA machines available from Debian (and Gentoo?)
but you can also install current versions Debian for Alpha and HPPA
inside qemu-system without any problems.
> My expectation, though, is that no-one needs these backends enough to
> commit enough cycles (of hardware and wetware) to sustain them for the
> long term, and if no-one comes forward I expect to delete them from the
> sources after the June release of SBCL. (If someone steps up after that
> point, I would be happy to undelete a backend, again with the proviso
> that there should be available hardware to test and human effort to keep
> working.)
>
> I hope that this isn't a shock to anyone! By all means follow up if it
> is.
If you want feedback from Alpha and HPPA people, it's best to ask on the
appropriate mailing lists in Debian (and Gentoo FWIW). There aren't probably
any Alpha or HPPA people around here.
I'll add debian-alpha and debian-hppa and notify the Gentoo folks on IRC.
Adrian
--
.''`. John Paul Adrian Glaubitz
: :' : Debian Developer - glaubitz@debian.org
`. `' Freie Universitaet Berlin - glaubitz@physik.fu-berlin.de
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