[Axiom-developer] Re: [Axiom-mail] Compiling Axiom on FreeBSD

[root]

re: diff command. sure.

re: noweb. 

ummm, there are "short term" and "long term" discussions.  In the
short term I'm just patching noweb. In the long term I have other
plans and extensions. It won't be a "fork" of noweb so much as a
rethink of the whole thing (probably with a complete rewrite). But
that's longer term. For now the only extension is the "booklet" code
by David Mentre. Literate programming is the goal; noweb is a useful
tool. If you use the installed noweb be sure to use the axiom.sty
file rather than the noweb.sty file.

re: bolt-on-the-side. 

This strategy has a lot of upsides and downsides.  One downside is
that I have to get code to run on many different ports.  I'd rather
face that problem and solve it. I want Axiom to build "out of the box"
so I have to make sure the correct version is used and the correct
patches are applied. The upside is that I can make sure that Axiom
actually works on various platforms since I can (and do) test it. If I
let the user choose "a version" or even "gcl-2.5.2" and build it
themselves it is likely they will have build problems.  These build
problems will make Axiom more painful to install.

I agree that the bolt-on-the-side strategy is not optimal, that not
everyone agrees that it is good, that it might duplicate existing
code on an individual's platform, that it makes porting painful, 
that it could (if we wanted to, but we don't) discourage giving
patches back to projects, that it makes tracking external projects
an issue, etc. 

Nevertheless, I'm still of the opinion that bolt-on-the-side (BOTS?)
is a higher-quality strategy for the Axiom pile. All the pain for
the developers and none for the users.

BSD port issues:

GCL-2.6.1 doesn't build there? I can restore GCL-2.5.2.tgz and you 
can change the switch in the Makefile. All of the code to build
2.5.2 exists. I'd like to know what you needed to change for 2.6.1

To add your changes to the Axiom build there will be a global
change to the AXIOM variable. It will end up being:

AXIOM=(yourpath)/mnt/BSD

and all of the changes for BSD will be buried in the Makefile
stanzas at the top level. Setting this variable will cause a

Makefile.BSD 

file to appear (rather than Makefile.Linux) and this will be
automatically invoked to apply the BSD changes (like using
gcl-2.5.2 rather than gcl-2.6.1).

Tim