Re: [Bug-apl] Question on installing GNU APL on Windows

[Richard Levine]

Thanks to all who sent notes and information on installing and running GNU APL on Windows. (I certainly obtained a “crash course” in the free software movement especially using GNU / Linux (:>). The intended way  using GNU APL seems to be under GNU / Linux. (Would that be a true statement?)

 

Regarding the immediate task, which is to put together a document explaining how to run GNU APL under Windows, I will volunteer to write such a document. I’ll try to include everything that was sent and certainly update with corrections as required. I hope it helps.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

So a few words about intended purpose and scope of document, in other words, why the interest in Windows?

 

Purpose  -

(1)    Some current GNU APLers seem interested in running it under Windows so it may be helpful for them to have  a document on the subject

(2)    The GNU APL home page has a paragraph related to running under Windows (so presumably it’s in scope of the GNU APL project, at least, that is the impression I got),  so people from the Windows world reading the Home Page will have further notes on how it’s done

(3)    The Emacs on Windows  FAQ has an explanation for supporting GNU Emacs on Windows (Why support GNU Emacs on Windows) which seems relevant to GNU APL. (Thanks to Blake for pointing me in this direction.)

 

Scope -

(This relates to extent of Windows support, which impacts the document) I’ll cover running GNU APL under Cygwin.

 

There seem to be two ways to do this. (1) Compiling, then running, all under Cygwin (2) Using the supplied apl.exe and running under Cygwin). There are a bunch of things to do in addition, e.g. using xterm, to get the APL characters.

 

Also to note,  there may be limitations in the operation of GNU APL in either method, in comparison to compiling and running it under GNU / Linux. (I can try to cover this as well.)

 

I have no idea how to compile GNU APL in Windows and run it natively, and in any case this does seem currently out of scope for several reasons (even if interesting to try), so I won’t cover it in this document. Anyway, it’s probably a discussion for a different thread.

 

Finally, IMHO I think there will be more and more people from the Windows world inquiring about GNU APL and wanting to run it, if this hasn’t happened already. News about GNU APL is already out there. It would be useful for the project to have a sensible strategy for dealing with that (is this another thread?) So perhaps having this document will help address their questions.

 

Thanks again for all the help.

 

Richard Levine

Professor, School of Computer Technology, George Brown College

416-460-6499

 

From: Juergen Sauermann [mailto:address@hidden
Sent: Monday, November 02, 2015 7:33 AM
To: Richard Levine; address@hidden
Subject: Re: [Bug-apl] Question on installing GNU APL on Windows

 

Hi Richard,

we have a document explaining how to run GNU APL on MAC, kindly written by Peter Teeson (see doc/APL-on-Macintosh.pdf).
If you like to write such a document for GNU APL on Windows, please go ahead and I will be happy yo include it in the GNU APL package.

These days GNU APL has no dependencies on non-standard libraries. Therefore it may compile under Windows natively and
if you run the result it in a Unicode/UTF8-capable terminal window then even the APL characters should not be a problem. However, I do
not own a Windows computer, nor am I willing to waste money on such a thing (or on a Windows C++ compiler). For that reason I will
not be able to properly support GNU APL on Windows natively. And I rather do things not at all than half-heartedly.

On the other hand, if somebody else wants to give it a try then I can try to help fixing technical problems that may occur on WIndows (to the
extent possible without a Windows machine).

Re. apl.exe in xterm under cygwin - I have tried that myself some years ago under Windows XP and it worked. What does not work right now
is native functions due to limitations of either libtool or of the cygwin platform when linking shared libraries.

The ./configure ; make ; sudo make install process is described in file INSTALL (and is not different from the installation procedure of most
other GNU packages). Installation of GNU APL under cygwin works exactly like installation under GNU/Linux.

/// Jürgen