[Ecls-list] Help needed, really

[Gabriel Dos Reis]

On Tue, Jan 4, 2011 at 8:17 AM, Samium Gromoff
<_deepfire at feelingofgreen.ru> wrote:
> 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! : -)

In private, I did notify Juanjo of my schedule (and I'm mindful that he has a
tight schedule too) a few days ago when he informed me of his own
tight schedule.   But, we spent more time making no
progress than actually doing anything.  My stating that I was dropping this
issue predated the email I sent today.

I just landed in Paris and  see that a preliminary patch has been proposed
when a lot of heat has already spilled into hard feelings on both sides.
Given what it took to get here, and considering that I had no intention to waste
anybody's time, I hope you understand my hesitation in believing (again) that
something really useful might get out of this in reasonable time with
nobody feeling
unduly maligned

>> 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 think that statement underestimates my appreciation of high portability, and
I am not sure I am advocating a high degree of completeness -- I had stated
several times that I'm not asking for complete ABI specification and that
having tokens like :x86_64 or sparc and 64-bit,etc., was already  a progress.

> 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. : -)

I'll look at it tomorrow after I have some rest.

>
>> 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.  : -)


-- Gaby