[Ecls-list] Help needed, really

[Samium Gromoff]

On Tue, 4 Jan 2011 05:10:55 -0600, Gabriel Dos Reis <gdr at integrable-solutions.net> wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 3, 2011 at 10:13 AM, Samium Gromoff <_deepfire at feelingofgreen.ru> wrote:
> > My impression was that ECL doesn't /add/ information anywhere -- it merely
> > /forwards/ whatever is fed to it by autoconf.  It's not intent, merely a
> > lack of sophistication.
> 
> Yeah, there was an earlier assertion by Juanjo:
> # I already mentioned the problem with exporting Autoconf's detection
> of processor,
> # which on some platforms is flawed (intentionally, btw).

Now, I hope, you don't read this as Juan's intentional reduction of the
autoconf's output, don't you?

What Juan says, in your quote, is that /Autoconf/ intentionally produces
flawed processor identification information.

> It has been a long day and a short night, and I'm a bit jet lagged.
> I don't see this discussion getting anywhere, and I don't see any chances
> of progress now when I'm jet lagged than when I was not.  I already
> said I was dropping the issue.

Now, wait, Juan pulled out some code to solve your problem, you cannot
just disappear, the onus is upon you to evaluate his proposal! : -)

> My naivete has been to think from the outset, when I reported what was
> causing the build failure and made suggestion (that was shut down based on
> completely different interpretation of what I meant) that it was just a question
> of explaining and if I tried hard enough it should be resolved.  However, what
> ensued proved me wrong.  and the discussion over the week has significantly
> cut into any appetite I had developed over the last couple of years
> in contributing to make ECL a better alternative to other Lisp systems
> out there.

Now, it's a hard problem, and you've had phylosophical differences (Juan
appears to value high portability, whereas you seem to need a high
degree of completeness).  I understand that this might not be the best
moment to discuss this further, in your position, but there is no need
for hard feelings either, really.

> I certainly was disposed to help implement missing features if the proposal was
> deemed of interest (and of course subject to improvements.)  We never got to
> that point, I doubt we ever will.

Juan has just posted code, so it's not that bad. : -)

> Reading past messages suggests that most ECL users who expressed themselves
> are either against, or don't care, or seem to understand but believe
> it is not an ECL
> problem.

Thankfully, you don't have to convince the users to implement a
feature.  : -)

-- 
regards,
  Samium Gromoff
--
"Actually I made up the term 'object-oriented', and I can tell you I
did not have C++ in mind." - Alan Kay (OOPSLA 1997 Keynote)