Re: CVS commit by root in apache: httpd.conf, +cvs.zeit.de

[rm]

On Fri, Aug 01, 2003 at 12:29:02PM +0100, Nic wrote:
> address@hidden 
>  writes:
> 
> > I would phrase that different: the more one modules that are 
> > available, the better. But i really don't see why a markup 
> > parser has to be in the language core. What's so horrible about 
> >  
> >  (use-modules (parsers xml libxml2)) 
> >  
> > Now, one thing i kind of dream of is a kind of "generic" interface 
> > definition that unifies modules with the same purpose (something 
> > like SAX, DOM etc. for XML parsers) so that one could substitute 
> > one for another (this allready works with XML parsers in Java). 
> 
> Note that Java (from Sun) comes with XML parsers and an XSLT engine
> now. It is true that GNU Java still doesn't.

Yes, but Java(tm) _has_ to come with XML stuff -- that's the 
world of hype-driven language design. Java also comes in several
flavours right now, partly because the "core" got so huge and
bloated that it doesn't fit (both in terms of size and of concept)
on a lot of platforms it was meant to run on.

> Personally I see no need at all for generic interfaces. As long as
> the interfaces aren't radically different it's easy to port between
> them.

Well, to pick up your Java(tm) example: one can (and belive me, one
really want's to) substitute the XML parser by setting a switch at
program invocation time. There are few things i abhore more than
'nearly' identical interfaces ...

> 
> This particular point is much more important in the database world
> where JDBC gives a real advantage. But Guile hackers can achieve the
> same with simple co-operation I suspect.
> 

Depends. It fancy it's nice if one can pick an implementation of
an interface that matches one's needs (pure-scheme vs. C-based,
speed vs. size etc.)

> > Yes, but if some core code of guile links against code under 
> > different licences (like, in libxml2's case, the MIT licence) 
> > it starts to get messy. I really don't want to have to go through 
> > a whole pile of licences before a start looking at a project 
> > (one is more than enough). 
> 
> I don't see the problem as long as guile is promising that such code
> will be licenced under GPL compatible licences.

And who is to decide what's GPL compatible? And that alone doesn't solve
my (the developer/user's) problem. It's still possible that my code 
can live with GPL but might be clashing with <whatever GPL-compatible
licence>. I strongly vote for the one-licence model.


> > > I need to get the code somewhere, I could send you a tarball if you 
> > > want one. Just email me if you do. 
> >  
> > Need some webspace ? ;-) 
> 
> I have some webspace but it's a bit of a mess and I'm too busy to
> clear it all up.

Well, i got the code from savanah. A few remarks:

 - i needed to rebuild the configure/autoblah  files - somehow
   the checked out sources missed some stuff.

 - your code won't compile with older compiles (gcc < 3.n for example)
   since you put code befor local variable declarations (which, un-
   fortunately is possible in C99).

 Thanks for your work

   Ralf Mattes