On Fri, Nov 11, 2011 at 02:58:47PM -0800, Steve Haflich wrote:
> Oliver Kullmann <O.Kullmann at swansea.ac.uk> wrote:
>
> From my point of view, the situation using Lisp seems pretty bad (see below).
>
> > Or just go grab a binary of sbcl (or cmucl or ccl).
>
> I do not use binaries for various reasons (taking them altogether):
>
> Yes you do, unless you compiled one of those "bigger Linux
> distributions" entirely from sources. If you managed to do that without
> starting with some prebuilt binary Linux distribution, I'd like to know
> how you accomplished this feat.
>
> What has you tied up in knots is your need to bootstrap, and while the
> starting boundary you have chosen (a working binary Linux, C compiler,
> etc.) is a reasonable one, it is also arbitrary. Once you have built
> any open source Common Lisp using a binary, that implementation should
> be capable of rebuilding itself (thereby guaranteeing the build is clean,
> if that is your concern). This is absolutely no different from building
> a Linux and C compiler from sources.
>
There is an essential difference, namely regarding the situation: Linux
is widely and freely available, worldwide.
And it is essential part of the open-source ecosystem.
So we base our system on Linux and what comes naturally with it, that is, C,
make and so on.
One often finds the illusion in programmers/mathematicians circles of
"rationality without the need to decisions", and then everything becomes equal
(perhaps "you have to use binaries anyway" would be an example). We want to support
Linux and its ecosystem, and this is a fundamental decision.
I wanted just to emphasise this necessity for fundamental decisions.
Likely, the nature of these decisions is not of general interest to
this mailing list. And, of course, one can decide differently (hopefully
consciously). As I said, I just want to point out the necessity of (political)
decisions, from which then other things follow. If one takes the decision
to treat Lisp as more "fundamental" than Linux, then of course the world
looks different. There is not so much what one can do here (in this
context, anyway). So my statement that the situation is "pretty bad"
has to be taken from that point of view, but then it is valid, and
perhaps informative for some (while others can consider the situation
as not "pretty bad").
>From a purely pragmatic point of view, one could try to create systems
for automatic download of binaries. ...
But I fear with that kind of stuff I might have already strained the
patience of this mailing list too much.
Thanks anyway for your thoughts!
Oliver