[REBOL] Re: rebol 3 => 64 Bit problems
From: brian:wisti:gmai:l at: 12-Feb-2009 8:35
On Thu, Feb 12, 2009 at 7:49 AM, Henrik Mikael Kristensen <
henrikmk-gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Feb 12, 2009 at 1:16 AM, Tim Johnson <tim-johnsons-web.com> wrote:
> > And that's even more disturbing. Sorry to sound so grouchy here - I'm
> > not usually this way, but I think that this is an issue being swept under
> > a rug and it won't go away, it could really cause a major public
> relations
> > disaster for RT.
> >
> > Let me know how it goes. Please continue to CC to the ML so that this
> > issue becomes better know.
> > tj
>
> The issue has been well known to RT for years: Linux is the hardest OS
> to support due to its very non-standardized nature. There are constant
> kernel and library changes. But RT usually asks regularly what people
> use the most, and then compile versions of REBOL to that Linux
> variant. The question was in fact asked again a few days ago, when the
> R3 version was going to be built. The answer was Ubuntu and an Ubuntu
> version was built.
>
> Carl doesn't wish to spend his time compiling for various Linux
> distros, so we would need package maintainers for each respective OS
> here. But if there is significant demand for a particular Linux
> version now, I'm sure Carl will build it.
I guess that's part of the charm of the open source approach. Perl, Python,
Ruby, and scads of other languages are available for every distribution I've
come across. Some of that has to be due to the fact that if somebody wants
Ruby on their platform, it's their responsibility to build it and submit
patches for what worked. Language developers are free to focus on the
details of developing the language itself. I know that Carl owns REBOL and
has done a great job creating it, but his meticulous approach may present
the primary bottleneck for wider adoption of the platform. As awesome as he
is, he's only one person, and what we can get is limited to what he can
figure out how to build. I haven't been following the development of R3 as
closely as other languages because it's impractical to get an EXE working on
my Ubuntu laptop and my old PPC iMac. I'm not much of a low-level code
hacker, but it sure would be fun to see if I could checkout the latest
commits from the trunk and try to build it myself.
Some variation of this has been said many times before, so I want to make it
clear that this isn't any sort of call to arms. Carl is free to develop the
platform he owns in whatever way he sees fit, of course. I'll continue using
R2 when it's appropriate for my projects and when R3 builds for my platforms
start showing up on the R3 Releases page I will eagerly grab them and start
poking. I'm just saying that I enjoy the additional opportunities presented
by having code readily available. And that I think all these platform issues
are making Carl work too hard on things that aren't important to the core of
the language - like making a build for 64 bit Debian.
All right, back to work for me.
Kind Regards,
Brian Wisti
http://coolnamehere.com/
