[Axiom-developer] Re: [build-improvements] make clean and xgcl

[Vanuxem Grégory]

Le mardi 29 août 2006 à 10:01 -0500, Gabriel Dos Reis a écrit : 
> Vanuxem Grégory <address@hidden> writes:
> 
> | Hello Gaby,
> | 
> | I tested the build-improvements branch and if we build gcl the XLIB
> | (xgcl) package is compiled in (gcl and AXIOMsys are thus linked against
> | the X libraries). Don't know what you think about this, it's just a
> | remark.
> 
> Ah, I have no particular idea about which direction to go here.  What
> would be your recommendation?

Personally I think that if we don't use a package we can remove it. So
for gcl it can be removed from the lisp image and added later if
necessary. In fact there is also the TK package that Axiom doesn't use
but I don't know if and how it is possible to remove it.

> | Another thing, more important, is that if you stop the build process
> | after the creation of bootsys, do a make clean, reconfigure and remake,
> | the build process stops and complains about the fact that lisp can not
> | be found (with or without building gcl).
> 
> yes, that is very annoying.  We don't have a good dependency at the
> moment.  We should have one.  I know I had similar problem in the past
> and I heared that it would NOT be recommended.  I think that is wrong.
> We should have a dependency that make knows about.  That way we can
> also have a parallel build (make -jN) -- Axiom just takes too long to
> build. 

I think so.

> I'm working in major restructuring of the makefiles.  

Yes the big part. A quick note, it would be great if a modified
src/algebra/*.spad.pamphlet file can be used by Axiom after a remake. In
fact I think that your work will fix that. More precisely actually (it
used to work in the past) if someone modify an algebra pamphlet file and
type make in the root directory the modified file is apparently compiled
but not copied to the mnt/linux/algebra directory. I have not
investigated this problem but it's really annoying when you want to add
some algebra files and modify them (I even don't speak about the
dependency issues). 

> 
> I have class
> today, so unfortunately I won't do much today.
> 
> But, please, list your priority about the build machinery.

I haven't no priority at all for this branch, it's not the silver
branch, it's a work in progress branch (as silver you can say). So if
there are some problems that will be fixed later because some
preliminary work has to be done it's not a problem. But what about
adding a file, say README.build-improvement, that quickly explain how to
build Axiom and lists the known issues, the workarounds and why not the
TODO (it can refer to the "gold" README for more information about
Axiom).

Greg

> 
> Thanks!
> 
> -- Gaby
>