[Caml-list] OCaml & XP, OCaml & CDK

[Caml-list] OCaml & XP, OCaml & CDK

[Nikolaj Bjorner]

It was not clear to me which e-mail is the most appropriate for
the notes below, so I decided to let everyone share the joy.

Here are some notes on installing OCaml 3.04 under Windows XP:
==============================================================

Installing OCaml on Windows
and Setting environment:
------------------------
Things did not work right away. Here is what I had to do
additionally:

1. Right click on My Computer
2. Choose 'Advanced'
3. Choose 'Environment' variables
4. Add C:\Progra~1\Ocaml\bin to PATH
5. Add OCAMLLIB and CAMLP4LIB (and CAMLLIB, OCAMLP4LIB for the paranoid).

Using quoted paths, 
such as "C:\Program Files\Ocaml\lib"; seems not to work with Cygwin.

Getting VC++ to work
--------------------
cl (the non-visual part of VC++)
complains that mspdb60.dll could not be found.
It appears to have been misplaced in Common\MSDev98\Bin
instead of VC98\Bin.

This problem is documented and trouble shooting is available at:
http://www.research.att.com/lists/uwin-developers/1998/12/msg00010.html

Include paths did not work. 
Editing the Makefile.win and replacing /I$(OCAMLLIB) by 
/I "C:\Program Files\Ocaml\lib" 
/I "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\VC98\Include" 
did the trick.

camlopt
-------
The link to the assembler from the README was out-dated (a number
of other links are broken from the ocaml sites).
Instead Google got me to masm32: http://www.movsd.com/masm.htm
A small 5.9 MB download, followed by install and the above PATH
exercise.

camlidl/tests
-------------
The Makefile is unix centric (uses gcc, which may come with 
cygwin, but ...).

ocamlmklib
----------
Is this missing under windows?
My Linux installation has it, my XP does not.

Here are some more general notes
================================

Makefile
--------
The makefile from http://caml.inria.fr/FAQ/Makefile_ocaml-eng.html
should be updated for 3.04, in particular include the relevant
macros for labltk, as described in the manual.

The hump
--------
caml.inria.fr seems down quite often, for example April 6'th.

Libraries 
---------
Several more features from the Hump 
can be added to CDK, such that for example cryptokit 
uses zlib from CDK and does not define it on its own.

Libraries that appear to be missing:

- XML SOAP 
- OpenSSL, OpenSSH interface or should we just re-implement ASN1 parsers,
  Spki interface, RSA crypto, SSL 2.0, 3.0, and TLS? OpenSSL also
  includes the usual block ciphers and hash algorithms.
- SMTP
- Mime tools
- XML SAX

Are there any organized more extensive wish-lists for the CDK?




Regards

Nikolaj S. Bjorner





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Re: [Caml-list] OCaml & XP, OCaml & CDK

[Xavier Leroy]

Hi Nikolaj,

> It was not clear to me which e-mail is the most appropriate for
> the notes below, so I decided to let everyone share the joy.

Thanks for sharing your experience, I'm sure some readers of this list
will find it useful.

> Installing OCaml on Windows and Setting environment [variables]

I hope this mess will be fixed by the next release.  The installer we
use is unable to position environment variables automatically (like it
should).  I'm working on a registry-based hack to work around this.

> camlopt
> -------
> The link to the assembler from the README was out-dated (a number
> of other links are broken from the ocaml sites).
> Instead Google got me to masm32: http://www.movsd.com/masm.htm
> A small 5.9 MB download, followed by install and the above PATH
> exercise.

I wasn't aware of this reimplementation of Microsoft's MASM.  Good to
know.  Microsoft itself is distributing MASM freely now, but well
hidden in various huge downloads...

> ocamlmklib
> ----------
> Is this missing under windows?
> My Linux installation has it, my XP does not.

In 3.04, ocamlmklib is available only for Unix, because that's where
it was most needed (to hide differences in shared lib building across
Unix platforms).  I agree a Windows version would be nice, to help
writing portable Unix/Windows makefiles.

> The hump
> --------
> caml.inria.fr seems down quite often, for example April 6'th.

Our upstream provider experienced major network problems at the
beginning of this month, culminating with a full-day outage on April
9th.  Sorry about that.

> Libraries 
> ---------
> Several more features from the Hump 
> can be added to CDK, such that for example cryptokit 
> uses zlib from CDK and does not define it on its own.

Yes, cryptokit could have used either zlib or camlzip to implement
compression, but I'm wary of cross-library dependencies and wanted
cryptokit to be usable on its own (with a stock OCaml installation).

> Libraries that appear to be missing:
> 
> - XML SOAP 
> - OpenSSL, OpenSSH interface or should we just re-implement ASN1 parsers,
>   Spki interface, RSA crypto, SSL 2.0, 3.0, and TLS?

Sounds like fun :-)  I agree it's more reasonable to bind to OpenSSL.
François Rouaix tried that a long time ago, before OpenSSL was called
OpenSSL, and at that time the documentation of that library was too
incomplete.  Things are probably better these days.

> - SMTP
> - Mime tools
> - XML SAX

> Are there any organized more extensive wish-lists for the CDK?

I was wondering whether the HumpS should not include a "project
proposals" section, just to give ideas to Caml developers that have
too much free time on their hands :-)

- Xavier Leroy
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Re: [Caml-list] OCaml & XP, OCaml & CDK

[Jérôme Marant]

On Mon, Apr 15, 2002 at 11:08:21AM +0200, Xavier Leroy wrote:
 
> > Are there any organized more extensive wish-lists for the CDK?
> 
> I was wondering whether the HumpS should not include a "project
> proposals" section, just to give ideas to Caml developers that have
> too much free time on their hands :-)

  I would encourage to create such a section in the Humps. Although
  I'm personaly very interested in OCaml, I often lack ideas about
  what kind of application I could write with it ;-) (indeed, some
  people are good at finding ideas).
  It could also be a place for ongoing projects seeking for
  contributors of any kind.

  Regards,

-- 
Jérôme Marant
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Project proposals site (was: Re: [Caml-list] OCaml & XP, OCaml & CDK)

[Michel Schinz]

Jérôme Marant <jerome.marant@fr.thalesgroup.com> writes:

> On Mon, Apr 15, 2002 at 11:08:21AM +0200, Xavier Leroy wrote:
>  
> > > Are there any organized more extensive wish-lists for the CDK?
> > 
> > I was wondering whether the HumpS should not include a "project
> > proposals" section, just to give ideas to Caml developers that have
> > too much free time on their hands :-)
> 
>   I would encourage to create such a section in the Humps.

So would I. Ideally, such a section would allow some kind of
collaborative work, so that people can discuss and modify the various
proposals. Maybe a Wiki would be a good start? Or a solution similar
to Scheme's SRFIs [1] where a design document is authored by someone,
discussed through a public mailing-list, revised and then finalised
(although this might be a little too strict for project proposals).

Michel.

[1] http://srfi.schemers.org/
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