[M3devel] Providing some current CM3 bootstrap archives, was: Re: m3cg build failure on powerpc

[Olaf Wagner]

Quoting Jay <jayk123 at hotmail.com>:

>> > .zip or .tar.gz or .tar.bz2 or self expanding .zip in an .exe?> >  
>>  I'm fine with any of these. Since Windows does seem to use other>   
>> approaches and conventions in most aspects anyway, we should just>   
>> go with what is easiest for beginners. What would you suggest?>   
>> Self-extracting .exe?
> Ah. Good point, know the audience.
> Well, I think a non self expanding .zip might be "best".
> The self expanding .exes I have made are console apps.
> The user must be comfortable with the command line (IDE integration   
> anyone? :))
> The .zip can be expanded with the builtin support or with unzip.
> .zip has that small advantage of "built in" support in the gui.
>  > Making such things completely automatic on many different target platform

OK, let it be zip then.

> Sounds like a job for Autoconf, eh?
> Actually I have experimented with Autoconf-ish sorts of stuff on Windows.
> If you know the local scripting language and even if that language   
> is like 10% of what it should be, not difficult.
> (That is, cmd kind of stinks, but it is good enough; and on Windows   
> the right answer is probably VBScript or JScript. They are on pretty  
>  much every machine now and are very usable from the command line,   
> not just the browser. Soon "PowerShell"..)
> Thing is, I don't know Bourne shell scripting.
> I guess these days you could use Perl. It's everywhere and I know it  
>  well enough.
> Of course you still need to know how to answer the questions in an   
> automated fashion.

Autoconf needs to be adapted to changes in the platforms, too.
I'm not against it, it's just becoming a maintenance problem soon.

> REALLY I have to say, I've been using Perl so much the past few   
> years, I'm kind of torn on static compilation to native code anyway.
> You know, this stuff could be in Modula-3 or Quake, but Perl   
> suffices plenty...and then you start to realize that it suffices for  
>  a heck of a lot of stuff..
> I did start some autoconfish-for-Windows stuff in Quake too. :)

I would not want to become Perl or anything else to become another
prerequisite for CM3 installation.

> See..there's this metapoint, metaquestion that I've been obsessing   
> over for years...some languages really do try to be the only   
> language you need for any task -- Java, C, C++, C#, Modula-3 -- are   
> good examples. And then when you find them too heavyweight and start  
>  using "scripts", you start to wonder, and when those "scripts" perf  
>  and scale just fine, you start to wonder.. Many "scripting"   
> languages are obviously no good, but some seem perhaps good enough.   
> An example of "bad" is Tcl with its ridiculous string-centricity,   
> how braces might LOOK like a scoping mechanism a la C and C++, but   
> they are really a hacky escaping mechanism... cmd is also too   
> string-centric among other things (cmd is much better than people   
> realize, but also seriously flawed). But Perl and probably Ruby and   
> Python really seem to be on to something in terms of "general   
> purpose" programming languages without a "build" step. Heck, I   
> believe Red Hat/Fedora setup is written in Python.. and there's a   
> book out there on linkers and loaders and .obj/.exe formats where   
> the guy developers a linker in Perl. I think that says   
> something..something positive.

In my opinion there's no language that suits every need. Modula-3
is great for programming large systems and building reusable abstraction.
Perl tends to become difficult to read (Write Once Read Never :).
Python is really good for a scripting language (we use it a lot at Elego),
but should not be needed as prerequisite for CM3 either.

Bourne Shell is POSIX and should exist everywhere (with the exception
of Windows, which never had a really working POSIX subsystem, but you
can easily install Cygwin there via a GUI). Standard POSIX (or Windows)
command line tools would be the level of prerequisites I'd accept.
Everything else should be discussed here and well considered before
introduced.

Olaf
-- 
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