From fahree at gmail.com  Fri Jul  3 04:29:31 2009
From: fahree at gmail.com (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Far=E9?=)
Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2009 00:29:31 -0400
Subject: [xcvb-devel] XCVB 0.313 in git
Message-ID: <653bea160907022129q4f2a5cfau5d984f1ce70bc608@mail.gmail.com>

Dear XCVB users, if any,

I believe that with the current XCVB 0.313, we have can do all that
the original prototype v0.1 did, and much more: it can dump a Makefile
from a project made of one main BUILD and plenty of ASDF or XCVB
dependencies; it can convert simple ASDF systems to XCVB. It has
features such as generated files, data dependencies, conditional
dependencies, superseding ASDFs (for incremental migration),
autodetecting CFASL support, etc. It has what I hope is a sensible
command-line interface, which is partly self-documenting.

I you are interested in creating Lisp images and/or executables from
large Lisp projects, and are adventurous, we invite you to try out
XCVB (after you did some proper backups and/or branching) and send us
your questions and/or feedback so we may improve it further.

We have already converted many systems from ASDF to XCVB. Some work
great automatically, others require manual tweaking before and/or
after or instead of the automatic conversion. closer-mop, cl-unicode,
alexandria, were notable offenders. Contact us if you're having
trouble -- chances are we already have a solution.

Finally, if you want to participate, our TODO document lists plenty of
ways that you could get started on XCVB and be useful.

Enjoy!

[ Fran?ois-Ren? ?VB Rideau | Reflection&Cybernethics | http://fare.tunes.org ]
If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? -- Mark Twain



From fahree at gmail.com  Tue Jul  7 16:13:08 2009
From: fahree at gmail.com (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Far=E9?=)
Date: Tue, 7 Jul 2009 12:13:08 -0400
Subject: [xcvb-devel] xcvb on youtube!
Message-ID: <653bea160907070913x6d887c19k302e43a242394706@mail.gmail.com>

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04ceFZ4sPq8

(Courtesy of splittist on IRC #lisp)

[ Fran?ois-Ren? ?VB Rideau | Reflection&Cybernethics | http://fare.tunes.org ]
If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? -- Mark Twain



From fahree at gmail.com  Wed Jul  8 16:04:21 2009
From: fahree at gmail.com (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Far=E9?=)
Date: Wed, 8 Jul 2009 12:04:21 -0400
Subject: [xcvb-devel] goodbye BUILD.lisp, hello build.xcvb
Message-ID: <653bea160907080904r29c4beafi79214c1162e75093@mail.gmail.com>

A quick opinion poll on irc #lisp revealed that the name "BUILD.lisp"
raised a lot of opinions against it, whereas "build.xcvb" seemed to
satisfy everyone. Other unsatisfying names proposed were

__build__.lisp
.xcvb
--build--.lisp
*build*.lisp
?.lisp
?????.lisp
build!.lisp
XCVB
BUILD
build.lisp
build.xcv
xcvb.lisp
xcvbuild.lisp
xcvb-build.lisp
build.lisp-expr
xcvb.lisp-expr
build.sexp
xcvb.sexp
sexp.xcvb
__xcvb__.lisp
?
buIld.lisp
buIld.lisp (with a zero-width nonbreaking space in the middle)
buIld.xcvb
<something>.xcvb
<quelque-chose>
&lt;quelque%20chose&gt;

I'll release something shortly that renames "BUILD.lisp" to "build.xcvb".

[ Fran?ois-Ren? ?VB Rideau | Reflection&Cybernethics | http://fare.tunes.org ]
Bragg's principle:
    Everything in the future is a wave, everything in the past is a particle.



From fahree at gmail.com  Wed Jul  8 23:55:43 2009
From: fahree at gmail.com (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Far=E9?=)
Date: Wed, 8 Jul 2009 19:55:43 -0400
Subject: [xcvb-devel] XCVB release tarballs
Message-ID: <653bea160907081655y63a43ff5re18dbaca564a7328@mail.gmail.com>

I released XCVB 0.324 as a tarball including all its dependencies, and
enough bootstrapped configuration magic that you may compile it with
any old SBCL (CFASL patch not necessary, though welcome). Enjoy!

http://common-lisp.net/project/xcvb/releases/

Using either ASDF or a bootstrapped XCVB, you can compile XCVB for
other implementations: clisp has been verified to work; cmucl and ccl
might just work.

There are still issues with ASDF-DEPENDENCY-GROVEL and ASDF-TO-XCVB
that make the automated migration fail on a large number of packages
(notably most ediware). We'll try to get these issues resolved,
possibly by pushing patches upstream.

[ Fran?ois-Ren? ?VB Rideau | Reflection&Cybernethics | http://fare.tunes.org ]
Never abandon a theory that explains something until you have a theory that
explains more.  -- John McCarthy



From fahree at gmail.com  Fri Jul 10 10:57:21 2009
From: fahree at gmail.com (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Far=E9?=)
Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2009 06:57:21 -0400
Subject: [xcvb-devel] xcvb 0.329 successfully bootstrapped
Message-ID: <653bea160907100357p3ec1c321hfd4217595fa0cd6e@mail.gmail.com>

This time it's for real: you can download xcvb, and it will compile
properly (with sbcl at least) out of the box with a bootstrapped
xcvb.mk rather than using asdf. So now, not only do we eat our own dog
food, we don't choke on it.

You can still compile it with a preexisting asdf via cl-launch with
"make xcvb-using-asdf", which is the way you may bootstrap initially
when you checkout the sources and dependencies individually from
git/darcs rather than use the release tarball.

   http://common-lisp.net/project/xcvb/releases/

[ Fran?ois-Ren? ?VB Rideau | Reflection&Cybernethics | http://fare.tunes.org ]
If a trainstation is where the trains stop, what is then a workstation...
        -- Lars Lundgren <d95lars at dtek.chalmers.se>



From fahree at gmail.com  Sat Jul 11 00:04:48 2009
From: fahree at gmail.com (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Far=E9?=)
Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2009 20:04:48 -0400
Subject: [xcvb-devel] XCVB 0.337, the maybe someone will try it version
Message-ID: <653bea160907101704p77be399cyea24179e38ef5ff2@mail.gmail.com>

So for a few releases now, XCVB has been fully bootstrapped on SBCL
and CLISP and this now works most of the time.

Now, before we get any actual users, I've decided to do a few API
cleanups before it gets too painful to change. Therefore,
:build-requires becomes :build-depends-on to stay in line with the
rest, and :generate-depends-on becomes just :depends-on, since it
already appears in a :generate form. In such cases, it's painful to
try to compile with a previous xcvb, so instead you can bootstrap with
the good old: make xcvb-using-asdf.

A recent feature is that we hush some of the compiler notes and
style-warnings that people don't care for at ITA, mostly using a
configurable API (though the sbcl compiler notes are currently
special-cased). However, my feeble attempts at using
WITH-COMPILATION-UNIT so as to catch undefined function warnings that
I may save aside and reconcile at the end of the build were doubly
unsuccessful: not only did I not go so far as to find a way to parse
said warnings, the attempt caused a deadlock on the SBCL
1.0.28.70.ita.5 used at ITA as WITH-COMPILATION tries to grab a MUTEX,
though it works perfectly on the minimally modified SBCL
1.0.29.54.rc5.cfasl that I compiled locally. And so I commented out
this WITH-COMPILATION-UNIT and for now, you'll be getting lots of
UNDEFINED-FUNCTION style-warnings while compiling, that will cause
your compile-file's to warn, and prevent you from stopping the build
when such condition is met.

For debugging purposes, the xcvb Makefile shows how to disable parallelism with
  make xcvb PARALLELIZE=
(Where the default value of PARALLELIZE is -j). In the distant future,
XCVB would control make itself, have a debug option, and drop you at
the REPL of the failing Lisp file with useful restarts. Not anytime
soon unless you make it happen, though.

PS: you know you don't have *any* user when you realize your release
tarball's bootstrap xcvb.mk had some paths hardwired in it that would
have required search-and-replace to fix on anyone's computer but your
own, and no one ever complained.

[ Fran?ois-Ren? ?VB Rideau | Reflection&Cybernethics | http://fare.tunes.org ]
Lisp programmer available: Will write code
that writes code that writes code for food. -- Rob Warnock



From fahree at gmail.com  Sat Jul 11 20:51:20 2009
From: fahree at gmail.com (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Far=E9?=)
Date: Sat, 11 Jul 2009 16:51:20 -0400
Subject: [xcvb-devel] XCVB 0.340, the my sanity's back edition
Message-ID: <653bea160907111351r20abf705x8cc43cf5648d1a21@mail.gmail.com>

So now with XCVB 0.340, most of our previous issues should have evaporated.

* The release tarball should "just work". Now with a target to install
the source code, and another target to bootstrap using ASDF.
           http://common-lisp.net/project/xcvb/releases/

[Quick poll: should or shouldn't the release tarball contain the .git
/ _darcs checkout information for xcvb and its dependencies?]

* my woes with with-compilation-unit were identified as some patched
SBCL being thoroughly confused when a lock is held while dumping an
image. Solution being to not dump the image inside of a
with-compilation-unit form (which is stupid anyway).

* Still plenty of work to do, but we now have a solid working basis
for a Lisp build system. Woohoo!

[ Fran?ois-Ren? ?VB Rideau | Reflection&Cybernethics | http://fare.tunes.org ]
As Marx should have said, the principle of communism is From each according
to what he can't get out of doing. To each according to whom he knows.
        -- John McCarthy



From attila.lendvai at gmail.com  Sun Jul 12 23:38:57 2009
From: attila.lendvai at gmail.com (Attila Lendvai)
Date: Mon, 13 Jul 2009 01:38:57 +0200
Subject: [xcvb-devel] XCVB 0.340, the my sanity's back edition
In-Reply-To: <653bea160907111351r20abf705x8cc43cf5648d1a21@mail.gmail.com>
References: <653bea160907111351r20abf705x8cc43cf5648d1a21@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <b54b34af0907121638u17eb9b0ch1ac5a04ae9453c97@mail.gmail.com>

> [Quick poll: should or shouldn't the release tarball contain the .git
> / _darcs checkout information for xcvb and its dependencies?]


it should, unless the size overhead is a problem, which i doubt...

-- 
 attila



From fahree at gmail.com  Mon Jul 13 00:39:48 2009
From: fahree at gmail.com (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Far=E9?=)
Date: Sun, 12 Jul 2009 20:39:48 -0400
Subject: [xcvb-devel] XCVB 0.340, the my sanity's back edition
In-Reply-To: <b54b34af0907121638u17eb9b0ch1ac5a04ae9453c97@mail.gmail.com>
References: <653bea160907111351r20abf705x8cc43cf5648d1a21@mail.gmail.com> 
	<b54b34af0907121638u17eb9b0ch1ac5a04ae9453c97@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <653bea160907121739n402e4a45p7d47218dbfe9bc05@mail.gmail.com>

2009/7/12 Attila Lendvai <attila.lendvai at gmail.com>:
>> [Quick poll: should or shouldn't the release tarball contain the .git
>> / _darcs checkout information for xcvb and its dependencies?]
>
>
> it should, unless the size overhead is a problem, which i doubt...

OK, I'll put back the git and darcs information starting with next release.

For the record, the size difference is 5MB and growing fast vs 400KB
and growing slow.

[ Fran?ois-Ren? ?VB Rideau | Reflection&Cybernethics | http://fare.tunes.org ]
Government -- If you think the problems we create are bad,
just wait until you see our solutions.



From fahree at gmail.com  Sun Jul 19 15:23:49 2009
From: fahree at gmail.com (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Far=E9?=)
Date: Sun, 19 Jul 2009 11:23:49 -0400
Subject: [xcvb-devel] XCVB 0.346, the getting there slowly edition
Message-ID: <653bea160907190823n557baf06qa9c60cc5a5421110@mail.gmail.com>

Since last week,
* we atomically update FASLs so there will never be a half-written FASL anymore.
* we improved ASDF-DEPENDENCY-GROVEL and the way we use it.
* we fixed the image inheritance logic to minimize creation of pre/post images.
* I found a way to cut down release tarballs to a reasonable size
while keeping full revision history, with git gc.

However, we still haven't finished compiling our ITA projects with
XCVB -- much more crazy EVAL-WHEN debugging than initially imagined.

We're getting there, slowly. While it might take time for anyone but
me to get used to it, I find the internal architecture of XCVB very
agreable to deal with. I also enjoy how CL special variables can help
do in a quick and dirty way what Haskellers do with nicely but quite
painfully with monads.

[ Fran?ois-Ren? ?VB Rideau | Reflection&Cybernethics | http://fare.tunes.org ]
Men rarely (if ever) manage to dream up a god superior to themselves. Most gods
have the manners and morals of a spoiled child.
        -- Robert Heinlein, "Time Enough For Love"