Re: [Axiom-developer] Re: gcl and noweb in the build-improvements source tree

[Gabriel Dos Reis]

On Wed, 14 Feb 2007, Brent Fulgham wrote:

| > The implication though is that when we make a release, we must make
| > sure gcl and noweb are included.  That slightly complicates the logic
| > of the Makefiles, but it is doable.  Also we must watch out that
| > people don't forget building and testing --without-gcl and
| > --without-noweb (which will be the common cases).
|
| I don't understand why GCL and Noweb are included in the first place.

since this is a recuring discussion, we should probably have an FAQ
entry for it.  The archive has some record of the discussion.

| You don't include AWK/SED, GCC, or a variety of other tools
| necessary for building the software.

indeed.  Because they are standard tools.

Which distros include noweb and GCL as standard tools?

| I suppose for GCL is was necessary, since Axiom might depend on specifics of 
the Lisp language supported.

You suppose right.

| But it seems like making 'noweb' a build requirement might be an easier 
approach.  And as Axiom migrates to a more ANSI code base you could remove GCL 
as well.

I don't think the inclusionof GCL was supposed to be forever.  It will
be however necessary, as long as it isn't standard tool.

-- Gaby