Re: [Axiom-developer] Re: noweb

[Gabriel Dos Reis]

root <address@hidden> writes:


[...]

| 2) sed and awk are NOT standard parts of a windows distribution.
| again as a matter of policy we need to reduce the requirements
| so we can work across a larger number of systems. ideally all 
| of axiom would run in common lisp and porting becomes a copy
| operation. C is only slightly more problematic. in fact, the
| key reason that axiom does not currently run on the mac is breakage
| caused by C. awk/sed/autoconf all seriously complicate the port issue.

What are the complications posed by autoconf?  

It is a developer tool, not end-user tool.  It has been used
successfully for a wide range of applications on a wide range of
platforms -- where the applications "should just work".

| frankly i'd much rather see the tools devolve into lisp implementations.
| gcl, sbcl and clisp generate native exe files on windows and executables
| on linux. given that lisp is a full programming language and is integral
| to axiom why don't we write code that is trivial to port rather than
| add requirements that are certain to make axiom unportable?

You want to increase the number of contributors and yet insist on
doing everything in Lisp?  I don't think that is going to scale
long-term-wise. 

-- Gaby