Re: packaging C interpreter

On Mon, Jul 23, 2012 at 4:27 AM, Giulio Paci <giuliopaci@gmail.com> wrote:

On 21/07/2012 08:34, Gergely Nagy wrote:
> Rustom Mody <rustompmody@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> I use and am interested in packaging the C interpreter
>> http://www.linuxbox.com/tiki/node/149
>
>> 1. Its not under GPL but a 'creative licence'
>
>>From the homepage, and the source, this 'creative license' appears to be
> the Artistic License, used by, for example, Perl. I do not think that
> will be a problem.
>
>> 2. It build does not use autotools but make with small edits. I guess I
>> could try putting it under autotools
>
> Please don't do that. There's absolutely nothing wrong with not using
> autotools. If minor edits is all the upstream build system needs, doing
> that is far less invasive than replacing the whole build system.
>
> Especially as there is no upstream to send the autotoolsification to,
> there is absolutely no need to do such an invasive change.
>
>> 3. Its an old project
>
> Now this is a bigger isse: with no upstream, possible bugs are all yours
> to fix. Are you willing and capable of acting as if you were the
> upstream author?

I think this issue is alleviated by the fact that someone seems to have
worked on this interpreter during the last year. Further information can
be found here:
http://eic-howto.wikispaces.com/

> I do not think a C interpreter adds any value,

I think a C interpreter can be useful if it can be embedded and
integrated into applications, as it allows for C scripting and quick
prototyping of functions, which can be both positive.

What are the benefits of EIC with respect to Tiny CC (tcc package) and
CINT (root-system package) that others have suggested?

Interpreter means two different things: scripting engine and something interactive like 'being-in-a-shell.' tiny cc only seems to be a scripting interpreter. ie I cant start it up and play around 'inside it' like for shell/python etc

End of this mail Ive put a few lines from an example interaction with eic

root system seems quite large:
trying to install root-system-bin gives me: 46 packages install, 27 MB to download
trying to install root-system gives me: 133 packages install, 50 MB to download

eic source is 500K

Bests,
Giulio.