Re: oaklisp: contains 500kB binary in source
On Mon, Jun 07, 2004 at 03:25:10PM +0100, Edmund GRIMLEY EVANS wrote:
> Jeroen van Wolffelaar <jeroen@wolffelaar.nl>:
>
> > I just noted that oaklisp has a 500kB binary called 'oakworld.bin' in
> > src/world. oaklisp is GPL. It seems one can re-create this binary with
> > oaklisp, but to build/use oaklisp, you'll first need the .bin. So, there
> > is no real bootstrapping provided AFAICS, in any case, it isn't used
> > since the oakworld.bin is provided in the source tarball.
> >
> > Is this acceptable? For example gcc also cannot be rebuild without first
> > having some C compiler. But gcc is a different beast.
>
> >From http://bugs.debian.org/122117 I get the impression that it's the
> same sort of situation as with gcc: a programming language X is
> implemented in the language X, and so it has a build dependency on
> itself, in the absence of alternative implementations.
>
> GHC seems to be in the same situation: there are other implementations
> of Haskell, but GHC uses some GHC-specific features, so you have to
> compile it with GHC.
GHC can be bootstrapped without GHC itself, there is a minimal C
implementation of the necessary code. No need to build-depend on itself.
I notice the GHC maintainer somehow doesn't use this possibility, I
don't know why, it makes bootstrapping GHC difficult.
> I assume that cyclic Build-Depends are acceptable in Debian. It would
> be difficult if they weren't.
For essential packages, build-essential and kernels (not in the sense
one build-depends on a kernel, but one requires a working kernel before
running the build), it's understandable. For everything else, I consider
that quite wierd.
--Jeroen
--
Jeroen van Wolffelaar
Jeroen@wolffelaar.nl (also for Jabber & MSN; ICQ: 33944357)
http://Jeroen.A-Eskwadraat.nl
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