Re: [Axiom-developer] solaris

[Aleksej Saushev]

address@hidden writes:

>>>>Greetings!  Are solaris and or Windows (mingw and cygwin) targets of
>>>>interest?  If so, what AXIOM setting works here?
>>>
>>> Solaris? Does that still exist? I don't have access to a Solaris box
>>> anymore. I thought it sat in the corner with Multics and MVS. I would
>>> have no idea how to set up the environment for it. Has anyone ported
>>> texlive?
>>
>>Not only Solaris does exist, it perceives a revival.
>>The only problem is that neither GCL nor Axiom are useful there.
>>ECL and FriCAS/OpenAxiom are.
>
> I'm not sure what point you are trying to make. 
>
> Axiom has been run on Lisp/VM, Symbolics, Gold Hill, AIX, and DOS.
> It isn't difficult to make it run anywhere but such porting efforts
> take time away from the primary project goals.

Probably, but I'm speaking about platforms that are actively used and
developed today rather than something that went off the scene two decades ago.
There's no practical use for software than ran on Symbolics
if it doesn't run on up-to-date system.

> Axiom's primary goal is to be well documented, easily maintained, and
> easily modified.  Axiom is a research effort aimed at teaching and new
> development.
>
> If you need it to run on Solaris or Windows, there is no advantage in
> using a native port. Axiom runs in Oracle's Virtualbox and in VMWare.

At this point almost any reasonable person would say that Axiom is
more of a failure as software project:
 - there exist well maintained and more maintainable forks;
 - they work at least equally well, if not better.

Not to mention that one cannot even build (original) Axiom easily
due to somewhat trashy build system even by standards of decade ago.

Making claims that one can use Parallels, VMWare, VirtualBox, or QEMU
doesn't change anything. Using native port is always an advantage.
It sounds as if you have never actively used software that requires VM.

> Given these tools it seems you can run Axiom without much effort.
> You get the added benefit that GCL is optimized for running Axiom
> so it runs faster in VirtualBox on GCL than on native ECL.

Dubious until proven. Even if it is so, with FriCAS and OpenAxiom
I can use better CL implementation than anything of KCL family.

My main point is that instead of wasting time into supporting one of the
worst maintained CL implementations (substandard, dormant for a decade
or two, very limited number of supported platforms, one man effort)
you'd rather have invested time into integrating build system improvements
Gabriel and/or Waldek did before leaving the project. One of advantages
of open-source software that is easy to build by anyone rather than only
by single developer is that it is easier for other people to become
involved into development. In particular, using autoconf brings you
closer to your goal of maintainability and modifiability than supporting
selected number of platforms (subset of those supported by GCL)
and recommending others to use Parallels or WMware.


-- 
HE CE3OH...