[Gcl-devel] Re: [fricas-devel] Re: next version

[Camm Maguire]

Waldek Hebisch <address@hidden> writes:

> On gcl-devel you wrote:
> 
> > The Debian axiom package has patches to enable a build where the only
> > linker available is dlopen (yuck).  This uses the compiler::link gcl
> > builtin.  Is this built into fricas somewhere?
> 
> It is should be relatively easy to switch to 'compiler::link'.
> However, IIRC the problem was that 'compiler::link' does not
> really work on Windows.  Namely, on Windows 'compiler::link'
> is unable to link Lisp files -- it can only handle binaries.

Odd, we should chase this down.  What happens when this is attempted? 

> OTOH I was unable to compile package definitions -- loading
> Lisp source containing package definitions works fine, but
> trying to compile those files gave me weird errors (including
> crashes).
> 

This has been fixed in CVS AFAICS, and could possibly be backported if
important.  Traditionally, gcl code has always loaded a .lsp with the
package stuff first before doing anything else in that package.  An
annoyance, I agree.

> >From my point of view the simplest solution would be to compile
> everything -- currently all other Lisps use 100% compiled
> code, only gcl is unable to compile package definitions.
> 

Agreed.

> Otherwise we need a maze of conditonals to choose build variant
> which avoid all platform specific bugs.  I was trying to
> minimize use of conditionals, but if necessary I will introduce
> a new Makefile variable to choose build variant using
> 'compiler::link'.

I would not advocate using this method by default everywhere -- the
other method is superior, IMHO.  There is a *feature* switch,
:native-reloc, which should indicate when the current method will
work, which includes Windows.  Only ia64, mips, mipsel, alpha, and
hppa lack this feature in 2.6.x, and only ia64 and hppa in 2.7.x.

I'll be gone for a week, alas.  Taking my computer, and hope to get
workable cons type propagation working in this time.  I'll attack your
2.7 gc issue when I return, if acceptable, as the laptop doesn't have
enough btu's for this I suspect.

Take care,

> 
> -- 
>                               Waldek Hebisch
> address@hidden 
> 
> 
> 

-- 
Camm Maguire                                            address@hidden
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