Re: [edbrowse-dev] quick js

[Geoff McLane <ubuntu@geoffair.info>]

Hi Karl, Chris, et al,

makefiles:

I completely understand you have no need to get into learning yet 
another language - cmake ;=))!

But of course cmake has a way to build different things - default for 
the casual/release-only user, or the developer, who wants everything. 
This is done with conditional 'OPTIONS', like say 'OPTION(BUILD_HELLOW 
"Enable the build of the 'hello' app" OFF).

Tidy has several, like BUILD_TAB2SPACE, BUILD_SAMPLE_CODE, etc... which 
are OFF for the 'user'. I even have a perl script, cmakeopts.pl, to show 
me the options available in every new cmake project I get into... it 
gives me insight into what the project is about, and what are the 
possibilities...

And of course a debug build is achieved by the -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug 
option...

cmake is a build generator, not a builder. So while the *nix default is 
'UNIX Makefiles', it supports the likes of Ninja, Watcom, ... etc... 
then more in Windows - MSVC, +++, and the MAC...

So 'makefiles' is just one of the outputs... for a specific toolset... 
starting with 'make' itself...

But you should continue to do what you are comfortable with, 
absolutely... no question...

Windows support:

My guess is that Windows users - those that have chosen Windows as their 
OS of choice - do not, EVER use the command line... may not even know 
about it... and have found other GUI based tools for web browsing, and 
email... etc...

A long time back, in Windows XP era, I did try to help a friend, who is 
blind, set up/repair her system. She had a 'talker' app running, which 
meant she could navigate various GUI apps with the keyboard, where 
options, like say in the MS Express email app she used, to fetch emails, 
read emails, reply etc... are spoken commands... as she navigated the 
apps 'menu', or tabbed through a dialog...

A modern Windows system has such a talker service built in... as is 
voice-to-text s/w... I think likewise in the MAC...

So a command line apps, like 'edbrowser' would just NOT be on their list 
;=))

And Chris, just reading more about WSL, it looks like it is a Virtual 
Machine - you have to intall a linux ditribution, like Ubuntu 20.04... 
so yes, I would imagine you could run native unix command line apps...

But, like Karl suggests, why would I do that? Looks interesting to me as 
a developer, explorer, but to a 'user'... to what gain?

I used to have a dual boot machine - Ubuntu or Windows - that gets tedious!

Now I am lucky enough to have 2 (+++) separate machines... and have them 
both running each day... and choose which I find better for various 
tasks... this is email is being done in linux... I can even ssh into the 
*nix machine to/from Windows...

In the past have played with some *nix emulators, like 'cygwin', 
'msgsys/mingw', ... but these never turned out very well... although I 
still continue to build a `mingw-64` version of Tidy...

And of course there are quite a number of 'Virtual Machines' - Hyper-V, 
VirtualBox, andLinux, QEMU, VMware,... 15 or more... all of which I 
avoid... except for some interesting, distracting, fun...

In general, I am a Windows 'native' user, developer, that also dabbles 
in cross-porting to other OS'es, for FUN ;=))

duk-moz-quick:

Given that I see the sources in eb, it would be easy to build all 3 
version - eb-duk, eb-moz, eb-quick - given that, like for the current 
duktape, I can download the other source, and build them in Windows... 
or they have a Windows binary distribution... although much prefer SOURCE...

If the project does NOT yet support the cmake generator, that is the 
first thing to add, as I do for 'duktape'... using my 'gencmake'...

I have a make2cmake.pl/am2cmake.pl script, which does quite well to gen 
the necessary 'CMakeList.txt', from examining the makefiles... even a 
'log2make.pl' to read unix 'make' logs... and I have a gencmake.pl 
script, to just traverse the folders, and guess... These auto 
generations usually need some manual fixes, but sometimes surprisingly 
minor...

The problem often comes from any library dependencies they may have... I 
have to back up, get that source, build and install that first... I 
already have over 50++ such 3rdParty.x64 libs...

And most of the time, I will choose to build it as a static library, to 
save me the hassle of copying various DLLs all over the place...

Even if the source already has a 'CMakeLists.txt', if it was generated, 
maintained by a *nix based person, it will only produce a shared (DLL) 
library. You 'Quickjs' seems an exception... But with cmake it is 
usually just seconds to adjust that to also build a 'static' library... 
and vice versa...

So, to answer you Karl, yes, it can be quick fix ;=)) Or it can turn 
into a week(s) or more... depends on so many things...

Please point me to the source, to use, and I will give it/them a try... 
just out of interest... thanks...

onwards:

If I were you, I would forget cmake at this time, unless and until you 
have a Windows user (other than me!)...

In your readme's mark it as unused, not maintained, may fail... etc

Best regard,
Geoff.