[Caml-list] Yet Another Compilation Question: lablgtk for windows + cygwin-mingw

[Caml-list] Yet Another Compilation Question: lablgtk for windows + cygwin-mingw

[Kontra, Gergely]

Hi!

I'm keep trying compiling ocaml to be able to produce optimized code.
When I try to configure lablgtk, it complains about not to find
gtk-config. I know there is such an executable under linux, but I
couldn't find this for the cygwin environment.

While reading the manual, I realized, that I cannot exactly know what is
the difference between cygwin and mingw, because the mingw compilation
needs cygwin. My idea is to provide fallbacks for some utility, which
doesn't exists for mingw. And I don't understand why cygwin compiled
code is faster, because such tiny utilities like grep, sed, awk runs
_VERY_ slowly on my Duron.

The distributed binary ocaml version is for MSVC, am I right? Can I hack
this version to use my mingw-gcc compiler?

Gergo

+-[Kontra, Gergely @ Budapest University of Technology and Economics]-+
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Re: [Caml-list] Yet Another Compilation Question: lablgtk for windows + cygwin-mingw

[Xavier Leroy]

> I'm keep trying compiling ocaml to be able to produce optimized code.
> When I try to configure lablgtk, it complains about not to find
> gtk-config. I know there is such an executable under linux, but I
> couldn't find this for the cygwin environment.
> 
> While reading the manual, I realized, that I cannot exactly know what is
> the difference between cygwin and mingw, because the mingw compilation
> needs cygwin. My idea is to provide fallbacks for some utility, which
> doesn't exists for mingw.

I can't help you with the GTK issues, but let me try to clarify the
Mingw/Cygwin issue.  Mingw, at least as we use it in OCaml, is just an
option on the Cygwin compilers and tools that instruct them to
generate executables that do not depend on the Cygwin DLLs, but use
standard Microsoft libraries instead.  However, it is still possible,
and indeed recommended, to use the full Cygwin development environment
to build those Cygwin-free executables.  Think of it as a
cross-compiler: from within the Cygwin environment, you generate
executables that can run without the Cygwin environment.

So, I think there is no need to "provide fallbacks for some
utilities", at least if these utilities are used only during the build
process: just install the full Cygwin environment and be done with it.

> And I don't understand why cygwin compiled
> code is faster, because such tiny utilities like grep, sed, awk runs
> _VERY_ slowly on my Duron.

Yes, file accesses are a bit slow under Cygwin, due to the Unix
emulation layer they have to cross.  The OCaml bytecode interpreter is
faster than in the native Win32 port, though, because it is compiled
by gcc and takes advantage of gcc-specific tricks.

> The distributed binary ocaml version is for MSVC, am I right?

Yes.

> Can I hack this version to use my mingw-gcc compiler?

No.  To install the Mingw version of OCaml, you need to compile OCaml
from sources.  

One last, general comment.  (Climbing on my soapbox.)  The GNU
compilers, OCaml, GTK. lablgtk, etc, are all software projects that
are developed primarily under Unix, and then ported to Windows.  While
each of these ports are done carefully and with considerable ingenuity,
Windows is not Unix and minor differences or inconsistencies remain in
each port.  These minor issues are usually workable when you use only
one port, but can become a real headache when you pile up port over
port over port.  What I am coming at is that unless you like to suffer
and are ready to solve these issues yourself, it doesn't make much
sense to develop an OCaml+lablgtk+GTK program under Windows.  

Hope this helps,

- Xavier Leroy
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Re: [Caml-list] Yet Another Compilation Question: lablgtk for windows + cygwin-mingw

[fred]

On Mon, Aug 05, 2002 at 04:40:38PM +0200, Xavier Leroy wrote:
> One last, general comment.  (Climbing on my soapbox.)  The GNU
> compilers, OCaml, GTK. lablgtk, etc, are all software projects that
> are developed primarily under Unix, and then ported to Windows.  While
> each of these ports are done carefully and with considerable ingenuity,
> Windows is not Unix and minor differences or inconsistencies remain in
> each port.  These minor issues are usually workable when you use only
> one port, but can become a real headache when you pile up port over
> port over port.  What I am coming at is that unless you like to suffer
> and are ready to solve these issues yourself, it doesn't make much
> sense to develop an OCaml+lablgtk+GTK program under Windows.  

I've been planning to build an interactive application with OCaml that
will be deployed primarily on Windows, so I'd like to understand your
warning better.

1. Is the risk just in developing (compiling, packaging) on Windows,
   or also in deploying to Windows?

2. What do you mean by "piling port after port"?  Do you mean
   reworking the application to track changes as the various tools
   (GNU+OCaml+labltk+GTK) evolve in successive releases?  Has this
   been a big problem in applications such as Unison?  (Or any
   other broadly deployed OCaml app?  I don't know of others.)

3. Is there some other GUI framework that you expect will entail less
   suffering than lablgtk+GTK?

4. As the porting problem applies to the GNU compilers and OCaml
   itself, are you warning us against developing OCaml applications
   for use on Windows?

-- 
Fred Yankowski      fred@ontosys.com           tel: +1.630.879.1312
OntoSys, Inc	    PGP keyID: 7B449345        fax: +1.630.879.1370
www.ontosys.com     38W242 Deerpath Rd, Batavia, IL 60510-9461, USA
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Re: [Caml-list] Yet Another Compilation Question: lablgtk for windows + cygwin-mingw

[Xavier Leroy]

> I've been planning to build an interactive application with OCaml that
> will be deployed primarily on Windows, so I'd like to understand your
> warning better.

I know I haven't made myself very clear, but basically what I'm
suggesting is: if you develop a Windows application using many tools
and libraries that come from a Unix background (e.g. gcc, ocaml, GTK),
it might be more effective to develop the application first under
Unix, then port it to Windows.  This way, during development, you
don't get bitten by potential quirks in the Windows ports of the tools
and libraries.

> 1. Is the risk just in developing (compiling, packaging) on Windows,
>    or also in deploying to Windows?

I think deployment under Windows is OK -- binary distributions work
well under Windows, better than under Unix :-)  I was really thinking
about development and setting up the development environment -- just
installing the necessary development software under Windows can be
significantly harder than under Unix.

> 2. What do you mean by "piling port after port"?  Do you mean
>    reworking the application to track changes as the various tools
>    (GNU+OCaml+labltk+GTK) evolve in successive releases?

I was mostly thinking about working around bugs and quirks in the
Windows ports of the tools and libraries.  For instance, while OCaml
tries hard to be OS-neutral, some libraries (e.g. Unix) have an API
that is slanted towards Unix, and are only 95% implemented under
Windows.  (For instance: Unix.select can take a mixture of pipe and
socket descriptors under Unix, but only sockets under Windows.)

Another issue is getting support from developers.  This is especially
true if the original software and the Windows port are maintained by
separate teams.  The core (Unix) developers tend to brush your
questions aside as "Windows lossage", while the porting team may not
fully understand the original software...

These are minor inconveniences, but they pile up if you use several
"ported to Windows" components.  

>    Has this
>    been a big problem in applications such as Unison?  (Or any
>    other broadly deployed OCaml app?  I don't know of others.)

The examples that I have in mind were all developed first under Unix,
then ported to Windows.

> 3. Is there some other GUI framework that you expect will entail less
>    suffering than lablgtk+GTK?

I can't really comment here, since I don't do GUIs :-)

> 4. As the porting problem applies to the GNU compilers and OCaml
>    itself, are you warning us against developing OCaml applications
>    for use on Windows?

No.  Please go ahead and we'll support your efforts.  But I'm warning
you that you should expect a few additional difficulties compared with
developing under Unix first.

- Xavier Leroy
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Re: [Caml-list] Yet Another Compilation Question: lablgtk for windows + cygwin-mingw

[Nicolas Cannasse]

> One last, general comment.  (Climbing on my soapbox.)  The GNU
> > compilers, OCaml, GTK. lablgtk, etc, are all software projects that
> > are developed primarily under Unix, and then ported to Windows.  While
> > each of these ports are done carefully and with considerable ingenuity,
> > Windows is not Unix and minor differences or inconsistencies remain in
> > each port.  These minor issues are usually workable when you use only
> > one port, but can become a real headache when you pile up port over
> > port over port.  What I am coming at is that unless you like to suffer
> > and are ready to solve these issues yourself, it doesn't make much
> > sense to develop an OCaml+lablgtk+GTK program under Windows.
>
> I've been planning to build an interactive application with OCaml that
> will be deployed primarily on Windows, so I'd like to understand your
> warning better.

As an windows ocaml user for some time now, I'll try to answer your
questions

> 1. Is the risk just in developing (compiling, packaging) on Windows,
>    or also in deploying to Windows?

As Xavier answered, deploying under windows is easier than under Unix . You
can package binaries quite easily without even the need for the end-user to
install Ocaml ( DLL's since 3.04 simplified lots of things )

About developing, I'm currently compiling and running OCaml code from MSVC++
:)
It's quite confortable this way, even if an OCaml IDE would be better.

> 2. What do you mean by "piling port after port"?  Do you mean
>    reworking the application to track changes as the various tools
>    (GNU+OCaml+labltk+GTK) evolve in successive releases?  Has this
>    been a big problem in applications such as Unison?  (Or any
>    other broadly deployed OCaml app?  I don't know of others.)
>
> 3. Is there some other GUI framework that you expect will entail less
>    suffering than lablgtk+GTK?

I've been developping Osiris, an OCaml class-based GUI system which is built
on top of the Win32 API OCaml Port (still partial, but complete enough to
work with). If you're willing to develop GUIs for windows-only, Osiris may
be a good choice. If you're willing to develop cross-platform applications,
I have been thinking for few month now to write a GTK port of Osiris... when
I'll have some free time :)

> 4. As the porting problem applies to the GNU compilers and OCaml
>    itself, are you warning us against developing OCaml applications
>    for use on Windows?

Don't worry, the ratio ( INRIA support ) / (number of window users) is quite
high :)

Nicolas Cannasse

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Re: [Caml-list] Yet Another Compilation Question: lablgtk for windows + cygwin-mingw

[Alan Schmitt]

* Xavier Leroy (xavier.leroy@inria.fr) wrote:
> What I am coming at is that unless you like to suffer and are ready to
> solve these issues yourself, it doesn't make much sense to develop an
> OCaml+lablgtk+GTK program under Windows.  

If I may respectfully disagree ... ;0) I've developed a graphical app
for my wife that had to run under windows. I started using C and gtk,
and it was ok until I needed to free a list of widgets ... and was
hoping for a good old List.iter applied on an anonymous function. So I
switched to ocaml and lablgtk, and my program shrank by half (in LOC)
and the transition was not too painful. I must say I've never used
visual basic or other M$ tools, so I cannot compare the ease of
installation or development.

Alan

-- 
The hacker: someone who figured things out and made something cool happen.
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