Re: [Gcl-devel] Re: [Axiom-developer] New design for Axiom web site

[Mark Murray]

root writes:
> You make a very convincing case. The key concern, it appears, is forking.
> The hope is to migrate changes back into the common lisp. Unless all of
> the common lisps agree on a socket standard I don't see how this can happen
> but I am willing to try.

:-) Whoever said the art of dialogue was dead, was wrong! :-)

Having some kind of useful mechanism of adding extensions seems to be
a focal point?

If lisp compilers all had some way that you could add external functionality
/a la/ dlopen(3), then would this not solve the problem?

> It might be the case that every modern common lisp DOES have socket code
> and that the socket support could be rewritten (with #+ for each lisp).

That would be the best scenario.

> In Axiom if you want to use an installed gcl instead of the tar file you just:
> 
> cd lsp
> ln -s (yourGCLdistributionPath)/gcl-2.17.1 gcl-2.17.1
> touch gcldir
> cd ..
> make GCLVERSION=gcl-2.17.1
> 
> The symbolic link will use the already installed sources.
> The "touch" will convince Axiom that it does not need to build the lisp again.
> The GCLVERSION variable says what version you want to use.

The above will need to find a saved_gcl, no? (I'll fix the FreeBSD port
to add this to the installed bits if so).

> I'll add these instructions to the FAQ in Makefile.pamphlet.

Excellent!

> We could make this the default install instructions, I suppose, but
> that shifts the burden of building onto the end user whereas it
> currently resides in the makefile. If the installed sources were
> installed as root then the user will have to install as root which is
> currently unnecessary (one should never work as root :-) ) I'll break
> out the "patching" portion of the stanza so it can be executed against
> pre-installed sources.

As an alternative install method, it suits FreeBSD very well, as all
a FreeBSD'er needs to do to build it would be

# cd /usr/ports/math/axiom
# make
# make install
# make clean

or, even easier

# portinstall math/axiom

The FreeBSD port infrastructure takes care of the details, like installing
GCL if its not already there.

> If you move to a new, untested version of GCL, the build is likely to
> fail late into the Axiom build because lisp won't contain the Axiom
> extensions.
> 
> About Camm's suggestion: I didn't understand the suggestion (and still don't).
> I feel like I "missed a memo" on that one. 

Did you get his long email

Subject: Re: confusion over patch suggestion
References: <address@hidden>
From: Camm Maguire <address@hidden>
Date: 30 Sep 2003 16:25:14 -0400
In-Reply-To: <address@hidden>
Message-ID: <address@hidden>

??

M
--
Mark Murray
iumop ap!sdn w,I idlaH