Re: [Caml-list] Some comments on recent discussions

[Gerd Stolpmann <info@gerd-stolpmann.de>]

Am Freitag, den 16.12.2011, 13:39 +0100 schrieb Alain Frisch:
> On 12/14/2011 06:36 PM, Gerd Stolpmann wrote:
> > I know, and this makes me quite optimistic that it is not that hard to
> > develop standalone executables for the frequently used Unix utilities.
> 
> It's amazing how a discussion about simplifying the life for Windows 
> users ends up with "let's emulate Unix under Windows"!

Simple answer: There is a bootstrap problem: The existing Ocaml users
are almost Unix-only. They do not care about Windows. In order to
establish "Windows-typical problem solving" you need definitely more
Windows users, but they will only come if you have a Windows-typical way
of distribution.

My thinking is that you can break this circle only if you go forward and
try to make as many Unix-style solutions available under Windows as
possible. Once there is a Windows community you can address it
differently, but for the time being I don't see a good alternative.

By the way, your plan includes Unix emulation, too, under point 3. It's
only more hidden.

Gerd


> 
> A few points:
> 
> 1. It would be useful to have a completely standalone binary 
> distribution of ocaml (with ocamlopt) under Windows. This can be 
> achieved either with little development efforts by extracting the 
> minimal needed subset of an mingw toolchain (an assembler, a linker, 
> some libraries and object files to link the main program); or with a 
> little bit more effort, by avoiding the need for an external toolchain 
> altogether.  I insist: most users of OCaml under Windows won't need a C 
> compiler or Unix-like tools.
> 
> 2. Binary packages for OCaml libraries could be simple .zip files to be 
> extracted at a precise place (under the hierarchy created by the OCaml 
> binary installer itself); or maybe even Windows installers.  If 
> installing a library only amounts to clicking on a link in a web page 
> and run the installer, it already makes the life of the casual user much 
> easier. We don't necessarily need a full-blown packaging system, with 
> dependency tracking, versioning, automatic download, etc.
> 
> 3. Binary packages are not created by casual users. It's not crazy to 
> require, at least in the short term, a decent Unix-like environment 
> (which includes a C compiler) in order to compile the libraries and 
> create the binary packages. It would be nice to adapt all the OCaml 
> libraries around so that they don't rely on external Unix tools, but 
> this is simply not going to happen.
> 
> 4. A small group of volunteers could identify the most important OCaml 
> libraries around, make sure they compile fine under Windows, submit 
> patches upstream if the build system needs to be adapted, and produce 
> binary packages for these libraries.
> 
> 5. What is important now is not to provide the ultimate package 
> management system for OCaml under Windows.  We should focus instead on 
> lowering the barrier for casual users, addressing justified complaints 
> from beginners, making it easy to use OCaml for simple native projects 
> under Windows or for porting OCaml applications developed initially for 
> Unix.  My hope is that this will be enough to attract more "native" 
> Windows users into OCaml, and then we (or they) can start thinking about 
> more ambitious goals.
> 
> 
> 
> -- Alain
>