Re: [Caml-list] Alternative proposal: COAN

[Sven Luther <luther@dpt-info.u-strasbg.fr>]

On Mon, Mar 03, 2003 at 11:39:36AM +0900, Nicolas Cannasse wrote:
> > One last comment on Windows. Since most development is taking place on
> > Unix, I think this is reasonnable to make the presence of basic cygwin
> > tools a requirement for compiling packages. The presence of gnu make
> > and some shell commands should be enough for most. Handling of C
> > libraries is more complex, but this must often be handled also at the
> > source level.
> 
> The need of having cygwin installed if you're not using the cygwin ocaml
> version is quite a problem. I totally agree with you when you say that OCaml
> binary distributions are not suitable (right now - maybe later). But that
> goes for the Caml part of the package, and not really for the C stubs.
> As a windows Ocaml user, I would strongly recommend that the package authors
> who wants to support the Win32 target do the following :
> - if the package only contains Caml code, release a full source code
> - if the package contains both Caml and C stubs :
>     * release the full source code using gnu/shell tools for compiling (for
> unix users and windows users who are familiar with such tools)
>     * release a half-binary Windows code where the C compiled dll/lib are
> provided with the full Caml source code only ( a separate tool like ocamake
> can handle the compilation )
> 
> For all things concerning installation, I think it's far more easy on
> windows than on unix systems, and so should be handled separatly (a caml
> written tool not relying on cygwin shell tools should be enough, according
> that the package author provide a minimum information on
> how-to-install-it ).

Well, like said, i never managed to got thing to install/compil properly
on windows (sure, i was trying to build a windows advi, which is not
possible, but still). The biggest help the windows users can do
themselves, is that some of you write an howto on how to do ocaml
developpment on windows, and describe it so that people can give it a
try, without the headache of trying to figure out how it is supposed to
work, and why it is not working, and other such. I myself did give it a
try from time to time, but after the headache that this involves, i just
thought to hell with it, it is not worth the time spent, and abandoned
the whole idea. I guess many other unix developpers think the same, and
windows will be going away anyway in a few years, so ... :))))

> PS : I'm a cygwin gnu/shell tools user, but I personnaly think that most of
> windows developpers are not willing to do so, and that providing tools for
> it is more in the windows-way-of-thinking.

Like said, fine with me, but i guess the windows way of thinking is that
it should work out of the box and without many problems. BTW, how do you
do Makefiles with the visual C++ developpment tools ?

Friendly,

Sven Luther

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