Thanks a lot Waldek for:
Please don't be insulted, I appreciate very much what you are doing for GNU Pascal, but I think your note gives a good impression of the major obstacles for newcomers to gpc. A lot of information is hidden behind the web sites in personal memories.
I know of the following sites:
http://www.gnu-pascal.de/gpc/h-index.html http://alignment.hep.brandeis.edu/Software/Pascal/Pascal.html http://www.microbizz.nl/gpc.html https://github.com/hebisch/gpc
Maybe there are more. Some infos from the brains went to the mailing list and is available in the archive. But it is unclear to me (and I guess others also) which information is still relevant and which is out of date. This is a bit frustrating, but as long as we have only more or less hobbyists working on GNU Pascal, we are out of luck.
I do not know who, how, and where the collected and hopefully current information could be concentrated, but I think it would be very good to have a central place ...
Peter Gerwinski noted las march a vague chance to have some student working for her/his thesis on GNU Pascal ... -- Bernhard
Treutwein Bernhard wrote:
I would say that www.gnu-pascal.de is dead: it got only minimal updates beyond gcp-20050331.
At github there is updated manual (changes to earlier versions are small, but for example it contains up-to-date features list). There is a lot of extra material at www.gnu-pascal.de, it was without update for long time so a lot is out of date. But for extras (as opposed to core gpc) I am not aware of newer material.
This is where non-developers can help a lot. We really need new maintainer for gpc web site. AFAIK www.gnu-pascal.de is under control of Peter Gerwinski, we can ask him to give access to new maintainer or establish new site. And in general simple thing that all gpc regulars can do: spread the word. If you are not sure what to say ask here and once facts are established repeat them elsewere.
This discussion has been enormously encouraging. We still haven't found anyone who is currently working on the compiler itself, but there are people making it avaiable, which is a start.
It's clear that the official website is terribly out of date. Can anything be done to remedy that?
--------------------------| John L. Ries | Salford Systems | Phone: (619)543-8880 x107 | or (435)867-8885 | --------------------------|
On Thursday 2017-01-05 10:29, Waldek Hebisch wrote:
On 5 Jan 2017 at 12:02, John L. Ries wrote:
I think there first needs a consensus on what remains to be done on the compiler itself (i.e., other than making it compile with recent gcc releases), how to do it, and then identifying developer(s) that are able to do it. For the moment, the only known ones with the capacity are Peter G, Frank H, and Waldek H. With Peter and Frank having possibly bowed out, Waldek is possibly the last man standing. Does he want to do it? Does he have the time? Can Waldek try to assemble a team with sufficient knowledge of gcc internals (or that is willing and able to learn)? Is there anyone else out there?
Which features are missing as far as standards compliance is concerned? It seems to me that the compiler is complete wrt ISO Standard Pascal. Some have referred to gaps in EP compliance (are these gaps deal breakers?). It might be helpful to have a complete list, with simple example code that should compile.
Unless the compiler itself is going to be improved by any remaining fixing bugs and implementing the missing features, what would be the point of simply chasing gcc releases (a hairy and never-ending task)?
If we don't have a clear understanding of what needs to be done to the compiler itself and developers to do it, then I think the development effort might well be truly dead, and attention then might needs to focus on how to get the existing code (Waldek's latest) to compile on all desired platforms.
As far as compiling gpc is concerned (whether on Linux or Windows), I have never had any real issues. I simply stick with a gcc source base that I have found to be wholly unproblematic (which for me is gcc-3.4.5/6 for Windows and gcc-4.1.2 for Linux).
Mac OSX seems to have major issues here, but it is probably nothing that cannot be solved by; [a] suitably amending the gpc driver program (gpc.c) to pass on any needed arguments, or [b] by writing a custom collect2.c to replace the default collect2.c, and compiling it separately, or [c] by writing your own os-hacks.h and putting in the include directory.
None of these options requires deep knowledge of C.
If anyone is interested, I have samples of [a], [b] and [c] which I use for Windows, to do things like dealing with Windows resource files where necessary, supplying some functionality that Windows does not have, and making certain that the gpc driver passes some specific directives (e.g., certain directory paths) to the compiler.
Best regards, The Chief -------- Prof. Abimbola A. Olowofoyeku (The African Chief) web: http://www.greatchief.plus.com/
Hi Everybody:
I'm a senior bussiness Delphi developer, I use Linux to store our Customer Databases and I know how to operate and administrate Linux servers (and Windows of course).
I make some services on FPC complementing my programs because on a normal Linux production installation the visual desktop is not installed, then I need to use Linux services to make some things work underground.
On resume I know very well Object Pascal language and have experience to program on Linux but with FPC & Kylix.
Because I'm a Pascal lover I like GPC to.
I find some drawbacks to FPC, concerning on stability and performance, that I think GPC will not have because internally is a GCC program running on his native ambient.
I know a few things about programing on C on Linux but nothing about GCC Tools and definitely nothing about programing compilers or tool chains or some thing like that because I always work on a self contained IDE that automate all my tasks.
But if spite of this I want to learn all about, if someone want to teach me. If a new group of developers is made I want to participate on it.
Talking about the exposition of Prof. Olowofoyeku I wan to say that I agree with him about the use of a stable version of GCC but only for a Windows release.
Linux evolves every day and is not gentile with legacy applications if we use a "old development platform" is too dificult to make it work on new releases especially if want to use a Linux distribution like Fedora.
Windows by the other hand likes very much this legacy apps because it´s his most powerfull feature and ensures the continuosly use of them.
The Prof. say to me that there are a way to compile GPC with static or self contained linking that insolate the compiler about the Linux environment and in this way most of the problems are go. I don't know how to do that on GCC. Delphi allways work in this way and for that the apps always work on different Windows versions.
By the way, very thanks to the Prof. Olowofoyeku for the binaries for Windows that they make, works very well including on Windows 10.
Best Regards to all
Oscar Flor
El 5/1/2017 a las 6:52 p. m., Prof Abimbola Olowofoyeku escribió:
Dear Chief,
Is there anyone else out there?
I can hire a computer science student for the summer to work on GPC, but I don't think they will be capable of doing much with the migration to newer versions of GCC. They may be able to help with other projects.
It seems to me that the compiler is complete wrt ISO Standard Pascal.
I have no complaints.
Enhancing the compiler is something a CS student could attempt.
If we can be sure of compiling GCC 3.4.6 on Windows, Linux, and MacOS using whatever version of GCC is current for those platforms, then I think we should be okay. I'm confident we can do so on Windows 32-bit, Linux 32-bit and Linux 64-bit. I can't compile GCC 3.4.6 on Windows 64-bit I believe because of divergeance between MinGW 64-bit and MinGW 32-bit. On MacOS I can't compile GCC 3.4.6. It took me some time to get GPC to run on MacOS 10.7.5, but I just posted my notes on how to do that.
http://alignment.hep.brandeis.edu/Software/Pascal/Pascal.html#Notes
We (my group) is going to try to get the same MacOS GPC binaries working on MacOS 10.9 and later.
Okay. We will look into that here.
If anyone is interested, I have samples of [a], [b] and [c]
I have your os-hacks.h file. Is there more? If so, then yes I'm interested.
Yours, Kevan
On 10 Jan 2017 at 10:52, Kevan Hashemi wrote:
That sounds promising!
[...]
I have not tried to build on the current gcc version for my Linux box - I just carry with me my binary gpc tarball built on 4.1.2, with its own statically linked gcc-4.1.2 environment (which can build gpc without fuss). This has served my needs regardless of which Linux version I happen to be using (and I have quite a few different Linux VMs).
Perhaps such a complete gcc build environment from an earlier MacOS could be used as a last resort? Or perhaps you are keen to use the latest and best features of the current MacOS compiler? (I personally just need a gpc that runs and compiles my programs correctly).
Will send that by private email (unless someone on this list is desperate to see C source code).
Best regards, The Chief -------- Prof. Abimbola A. Olowofoyeku (The African Chief) web: http://www.greatchief.plus.com/
I volunteer to maintain the website. Considering my skill set, I could be more help as a tester and/or web admin. I can also see about creating an IRC channel and monitoring it daily during working hours (GMT -6). Will also monitor the FPC IRC channels for any questions about GPC and spread the word where appropriate.
-Ken
On Thu, Jan 5, 2017 at 11:29 AM, Waldek Hebisch hebisch@math.uni.wroc.pl wrote: ...
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John L. Ries -
Ken Linder -
Kevan Hashemi -
Oscar Flor -
Prof Abimbola Olowofoyeku -
Treutwein Bernhard -
Waldek Hebisch