[Caml-list] [ANN] WODI (beta4) (Windows port of GODI)

[Caml-list] [ANN] WODI (beta4) (Windows port of GODI)

[Andreas Hauptmann]

I am pleased to announce a new release of WODI (beta4).

Cygwin recently updated their mingw-w64-toolchains and various build
related tools (e.g patch). This has led to inconveniences with
previous versions of WODI.[*]

This release (hopefully) fix these issues and provides new and updated
binary packages (compatible with the mingw-w64 4.7.x-toolchain, but not
4.5.x) [**]

WODI is an extended Windows port of GODI (and still maintained at the
moment). Its build system and package tools rely on Cygwin, but the
libraries and programs, compiled with mingw-w64 and OCaml, are
independent of Cygwin.

WODI can compile ocaml related software from source or can install
already compiled packages. The compiled packages are available as 32-bit and
64-bit versions.

By default WODI installs the ocaml compiler (4.00.1) itself, flexdll
and findlib. Ocamltop-GTK and ocaml-top are now included as replacement
to the dated OcamlTopWin.

Additional software can be installed through a small package
management tool.

Among others:
- alternatives to the standard library:
    batteries, extlib and Jane Street's Core_kernel (!?)
- various build tools:
    omake, oasis
- common external c libraries with their bindings:
    pcre, lablgtk2, zarith/gmp, zlib, ...
- "pure" ocaml libraries:
    xmlm, re, camomile, ...
- editors:
    ocamleditor and emacs (with optional support for ocp-indent)

A complete list can be found here:
http://wodi.forge.ocamlcore.org/packages.html
(Caution! Many libraries are just adopted from the original godi
repository or their build instructions were generated from _oasis
files)

Installers can be downloaded at:
http://wodi.forge.ocamlcore.org/download.html

The installer will first try to create (or update) a cygwin
environment and then install GODI itself. However, the installer could
fail, if BLODA is involved
( http://cygwin.com/faq/faq.html#faq.using.bloda ) Instructions for
manual installation can also be found at the address above.

Suggestions, comments and bug reports are welcome.  I'm particular
interested in your experience with certain packages, e.g. core_kernel
and dependencies as well as other common libraries with c stubs.

regards,
 Andreas


[*] The mingw-w64 toolchain (necessary to compile ocaml programs) and
various unix like tools (needed by GODI) are maintained by the cygwin
community; WODI by me. Therefore, such inconveniences can happen from
time to time.

[**] The packages are incompatible with previous versions of wodi.
A binary update through the package manager is not possible.