[mcclim-devel] problem building McCLIM mothering on Linux ACL 6.2

[rpgoldman at real-time.com]

>>>>> "asf" == Andreas Fuchs <asf at boinkor.net> writes:

    asf> Today, <rpgoldman at real-time.com> wrote:
    >> I have been able to build the clim-clx-user system (which loads
    >> clim) using the defsystem that comes in system.lisp for mcclim.  So
    >> it seems like the package problem I just reported is somehow in
    >> mcclim.asd, but not in system.lisp.
    >> 
    >> If I find out any more, I'll report.

    asf> Oh. I should have been more explicit about that in the INSTALL.ASDF,
    asf> then.

No, entirely  my fault.  I had looked at the installation instructions
some time ago, and assumed (incorrectly) that I knew what to do.  I'm
not sure I would have recalled that ACL needs (require :CLX), anyway.
The only other graphics toolkit I use is garnet and I hacked in the
require there myself :-)

    asf> On ACL6.2, you need to (require :clx) (as step 2 says) before you
    asf> (asdf:oos 'asdf:load-op :mcclim). Unfortunately, CLX doesn't come with
    asf> an ASDF system on ACL.

    asf> Perhaps we should make a clx-compat system that pulls in CLX the
    asf> traditional way (but is visible to ASDF for dependencies), like so:

    asf> (asdf:defsystem :mcclim-clx-compat)

    asf> (defmethod asdf:perform ((o asdf:load-op) (c (eql (asdf:find-system :mcclim-clx-compat))))
    asf>   #+acl (require :clx))

    asf> This could also help with the (require "carbon") requirement for the
    asf> beagle backend. What do you think?

Doesn't this still have the problem that ASDF has no way of
determining which back-end you want, so that for example, one can try
to load one of the applications and end up with no back-end at all?

Would it be possible to make a :clim-with-backend system that would
have a load-op method that would simply ask the user what backend s/he
would prefer (and presumably offer a reasonable default by platform)?
Then we could have the clim applications require :clim-with-backend,
rather than just :clim.

I confess that I have not the foggiest idea what this half-baked idea
would do to ASDF's dependency tracing.

Best,
R