The installation instructions in the manual are somewhat outdated (and have always been, at least for some years now). There are probably a number of things which are not quite accurate, missing or unnecessary (perhaps kludges that were once necessary). Also, the structure of the chapter is probably not optimal.
Furthermore, there's information (partly overlapping, but also containing things not mentioned in the manual) that was once in the FAQ, but was taken out since it should be merged with the install instructions (because having two parallel, but not quite identical instructions would only add to the confusion).
This merging hasn't been done, so the old FAQ information has rotted since then (probably all URLs in it are wrong now etc.), so it must be carefully updated and then merged with the install chapter.
Obviously, I'm looking for people to do that. (I'm not going to, since my perspective, especially here, is a bit different from the average user's ...)
Ideally, perhaps for each "essentially" different platform (i.e., DJGPP, Cygwin, Mingw, Mac OS, Unix and perhaps GNU/Linux as a special case of Unix where some things are easier, so it might be worth making it a separate section which doesn't confuse the user with details necessary for other Unices) one user should write one compact section. It should describe both compiling from sources and installing binaries. (Of course, this doesn't mean completely rewriting it -- the existing material can be used and rearranged, of course.)
There should be some coordination (by one of them or someone else), so the sections will not look more different from each other than necessary, and common things need to be described only once. I'd like to not have to do this myself, but instead get the collected material from the coordinator in a new install.texi when it's ready.
(I'm sending this mail to both gpc and gpc-doc, since it concerns the documentation, but also "regular" GPC users, and since the archives currently don't work, please reply to both lists. Once the volunteers have found, they can coordinate via gpc-doc only or private mail, of course ...)
I've put the install chapter from the current sources as well as the old information from the FAQ at http://fjf.gnu.de/gpc-install.tar.gz
Frank
Frank Heckenbach wrote:
Ideally, perhaps for each "essentially" different platform (i.e., DJGPP, Cygwin, Mingw, Mac OS, Unix and perhaps GNU/Linux as a special case of Unix where some things are easier, so it might be worth making it a separate section which doesn't confuse the user with details necessary for other Unices) one user should write one compact section. It should describe both compiling from sources and installing binaries. (Of course, this doesn't mean completely rewriting it -- the existing material can be used and rearranged, of course.)
The GPC source code distribution for Mac OS X includes a separate file with building-instructions for the platform. It can be merged with the gpc docs (if somebody volunteers to coordinate it (come on guys)). I can send it in on request.
Regards,
Adriaan van Os
Pick me!!!!!!!
On Saturday, June 28, 2003, at 10:40 AM, Adriaan van Os wrote:
Frank Heckenbach wrote:
Ideally, perhaps for each "essentially" different platform (i.e., DJGPP, Cygwin, Mingw, Mac OS, Unix and perhaps GNU/Linux as a special case of Unix where some things are easier, so it might be worth making it a separate section which doesn't confuse the user with details necessary for other Unices) one user should write one compact section. It should describe both compiling from sources and installing binaries. (Of course, this doesn't mean completely rewriting it -- the existing material can be used and rearranged, of course.)
The GPC source code distribution for Mac OS X includes a separate file with building-instructions for the platform. It can be merged with the gpc docs (if somebody volunteers to coordinate it (come on guys)). I can send it in on request.
Regards,
Adriaan van Os
Frank Heckenbach a écrit:
The installation instructions in the manual are somewhat outdated (and have always been, at least for some years now). There are probably a number of things which are not quite accurate, missing or unnecessary (perhaps kludges that were once necessary). Also, the structure of the chapter is probably not optimal.
Obviously, I'm looking for people to do that. (I'm not going to, since my perspective, especially here, is a bit different from the average user's ...)
OK for DJGPP.
Maurice
On Sat, 28 Jun 2003, Frank Heckenbach wrote:
The installation instructions in the manual are somewhat outdated (and have always been, at least for some years now). There are probably a number of things which are not quite accurate, missing or unnecessary (perhaps kludges that were once necessary). Also, the structure of the chapter is probably not optimal.
Also, if I may add, the installation procedure itself is somewhat not optimal. It's frequent to change a line of code and want to see how it works. Then makefile installs all docs, sometimes rebuilds them, docdemos and various stuff again, while actually only the compiler proper has changed.
Obviously, a change to Makefiles would be required, to process the build work in higher resolution (don't look at me). I know Frank is busy with more important things, but it could be added to TODO list at least ...
OTOH and IMHO, it could pay out in faster development change-save-compile-test cycle. For compiler developers, I mean. End users shouldn't notice the difference on average.
My $0.02,
Mirsad
Mirsad Todorovac wrote:
On Sat, 28 Jun 2003, Frank Heckenbach wrote:
The installation instructions in the manual are somewhat outdated (and have always been, at least for some years now). There are probably a number of things which are not quite accurate, missing or unnecessary (perhaps kludges that were once necessary). Also, the structure of the chapter is probably not optimal.
Also, if I may add, the installation procedure itself is somewhat not optimal. It's frequent to change a line of code and want to see how it works. Then makefile installs all docs, sometimes rebuilds them, docdemos and various stuff again, while actually only the compiler proper has changed.
Could you please send a "test case" where docs or docdemos are rebuilt without having been changed? I'm trying to fix those cases, but make is a tough beast, so I might still have missed a few.
As for installation, you could try
cd gcc
make pascal.install-compiler pascal.install-common install-gpcpp \ pascal.install-lib pascal.install-utils pascal.install-units
(you can omit parts you certainly don't want to be updated; OTOH I think these parts don't take long, mostly the docs do).
I'm not actually sure we should make it more comfortable to do such partial installs. For those who do it regularly and know how do to it (now you do), it's easy enough to put this in a script.
Making it too simple might confuse newcomers (I'm already getting enough requests about the -with-gcc and plain (without GCC parts) installations), and debugging other people's broken (e.g., because only partly updated) installations is no fun.
Frank
On Tue, 1 Jul 2003, Frank Heckenbach wrote:
Mirsad Todorovac wrote:
On Sat, 28 Jun 2003, Frank Heckenbach wrote:
The installation instructions in the manual are somewhat outdated (and have always been, at least for some years now). There are probably a number of things which are not quite accurate, missing or unnecessary (perhaps kludges that were once necessary). Also, the structure of the chapter is probably not optimal.
Also, if I may add, the installation procedure itself is somewhat not optimal. It's frequent to change a line of code and want to see how it works. Then makefile installs all docs, sometimes rebuilds them, docdemos and various stuff again, while actually only the compiler proper has changed.
Could you please send a "test case" where docs or docdemos are rebuilt without having been changed? I'm trying to fix those cases, but make is a tough beast, so I might still have missed a few.
Now that I look at it again, it appears that it has rebuilt the docs only when something in rts/ was modified, which is justified.
As for installation, you could try
cd gcc
make pascal.install-compiler pascal.install-common install-gpcpp \ pascal.install-lib pascal.install-utils pascal.install-units
(you can omit parts you certainly don't want to be updated; OTOH I think these parts don't take long, mostly the docs do).
Indeed.
I'm not actually sure we should make it more comfortable to do such partial installs. For those who do it regularly and know how do to it (now you do), it's easy enough to put this in a script.
I think I see your point.
Making it too simple might confuse newcomers (I'm already getting enough requests about the -with-gcc and plain (without GCC parts) installations), and debugging other people's broken (e.g., because only partly updated) installations is no fun.
That's a legal concern. Safety first.
Mirsad
-
Adriaan van Os -
Frank Heckenbach -
Maurice Lombardi -
Mirsad Todorovac -
Paul Davidson