Re: Windows support

[James Mansion]

On Tue, 10 May 2011 07:29:52 +0100, Mark Summerfield <address@hidden> wrote:


> It would be a pity to give up on lout!
>
> The build process is insane but not difficult.
>
> In the source look for the 'makefile' file and follow the numbered
> instructions in the comments at the top. Basically you have to set some
> variables in the makefile and then run make. Be very careful of
> instruction (5) though---some directories must exist and some must not
> (yes, it is bonkers and used to catch me out all the time).

It tool only a short time to sort out msdev to build it.  The problem was
trying to find anything in the result, and clearly I was looking in the
wrong place because I was looking in C source rather than a macro, and
that rather explains why reading code back up the stack frame wasn't  
helpful.

In 20-something years, this IS the worst source code I've looked in,
but if its primarily maintenance mode and really is that old then that
may explain the levels of macro use and use of unioned data areas.

It clearly works and I guess that once you're in the groove it makes
sense, but last time I looked in code like this it was C code spat out
by cfront.  I guess its unapproachable and old fashioned - perhaps 'worst'
is a bit unfair.  It does seem to work pretty well after all.

> Sphinx and lout are designed to solve very different problems, so my
> guess is that if sphinx meets your needs lout won't---and vice versa.

That's not quite so - I started with TeX and Lyx and was trying to find
something that felt good for a writing technical book.  I much prefer Lout
to *Tex but I'm not keen on betting the farm on it now I've looked under
the hood.  Admittedly that's not where Sphinx came from, but it seems
OK at the moment. Its more likely that I could fix what Sphinx does
to suit though.

I might have another go but its not encouraging to write with something
that I can't feel I could fix without an insane amount of effort. I'd
be concerned with *TeX for similar reasons except for the hugely greater
number of others investing in it.

And yes, I didn't mention pipe, because I was returning casually to
ask whether the Windows compatibility has been fixed - and it hasn't.
Fair enough.  Passive-aggressive my arse, anyway.

James