267600+ entries in 0.178s
shinohai: lol
they even have `NSACareers` account
a111: Logged on 2016-08-22 03:17 mircea_popescu: and
trying
to implement a "better" autoconf, even "by hand", will not result in anything better
jurov: you always use
the most immaterial point and use it as counterargument "phee jurov doesn't want
to clean his guns manually"
jurov: eh, i'm in no mood
to discuss deeper, whatever
a111: Logged on 2016-08-18 22:32 asciilifeform: 'The situation is somewhat akin
to a retarded girlfriend
trying
to flood your apartment,
that not only opens all
the faucets and stops all
the drains, but also
takes
the "extremely clever" measure of puncturing
the water pipes, so she can
then preciously inform you
that "turning off
the faucets won't help" and you must work with her
to somehow create a raft out of your widescreen
TV so as
to navigate
the marshy
terrain
that used
to b
a111: Logged on 2016-08-22 03:11 phf: i say it's a chicken and egg problem, because you know you can get vendor versions of posix
tools (and
then still reduce
the available "language" even more, by
taking away some features
that might be missing in nominally posix sh on some obscure system), but you can't really do anything else, until you established some
truths about your environment
a111: Logged on 2016-08-22 03:02 mircea_popescu: basically, seems
to me most, or at least a good chunk of autoconf problems as described by alf come from
the fact
that it
tries
to parse, rather
than compile. in
the abstract sense of
these
terms.
jurov: interesting, so
the consesnus is apparently wot does not mean anything anymore and i should curate gpg keys manually?
☟︎ shinohai: I like phf's setup, it is simple
to go in and find which patches I need/don't need.
a111: Logged on 2016-08-22 11:27 jurov: re: eulora build system. last i saw it still carried crap like --with-hunspell . And when i
tried
to add configure option for ecl support.. i just gave up, it uses jam with poorly documented custom CS extensions.
jurov: well,
the v set is like 5 people
jurov: When
there will be new shiny
thing in rust or something
jurov: noone can't ever use vanilla autotools and ftjam as documented. it's absolute necessity
to prove own intelligence and DRY-adherence by creatively rigging
the build system.
☟︎ jurov: it's all much worse
than just "generates big configure
turds"
jurov: re: eulora build system. last i saw it still carried crap like --with-hunspell . And when i
tried
to add configure option for ecl support.. i just gave up, it uses jam with poorly documented custom CS extensions.
☟︎ diana_coman: I'll search
the logs
to find phf's pointer and have a look at it
diana_coman: phf mircea_popescu I
think
that was probably before my
time really
BingoBoingo: <phf> i
think crystal whatever is particularly nasty
take on autoconf, probably one of
the best examples in support of asciilifeform's rants. << Nah, "Monero" is far worse because of what it supposes
to be.
BingoBoingo: <mircea_popescu> ok, but i mean... so we drive nails with screwdriver because
that's what we got. << In
that case skip nail and drive in screwdriver. Better load bearing ability, usually...
BingoBoingo: * asciilifeform brb, alcohol << AHA, S.MG is driving alf closer
to rehab!
mircea_popescu: in
truth we've been working on all sorts of
things other
than build process for months nao.
phf: nah,
those patches were crossplatform by design
mircea_popescu: diana_coman did we eat
that up or what happened do you recall ?
phf: by changes i mean
the homebrew build patches. pretty sure i said something about "please look at
them patches" in #eulora, probably
to jurov or diana_coman. i highly doubt it was done, so more suffering on
their part :>
phf: i went
through
the whole exercise of rebuilding
the scripts from
their respective ac files
mircea_popescu: phf eulora can't pull current cs because
they fucked it up. so i wouldn't know.
phf: do you know if my changes were integrated into
the release? because last
time i checked
the build wasn't doing autoconf, but simply using patches generated scripts.
mircea_popescu: anyway ; it's evident
that in
the future republican code will have one of
the
two possible profiles (trb-like ; eulora-like), not necessarily one, and certainly not necessarily
the former.
phf: only worse autoconf build i've seen was clisp, but in
the later case it was written by one of autoconf authors, so while it was elaborate it was at
the very least sane
mircea_popescu: ironically, it is also one of
the most solid parts of
the entire codebase.
phf: i
think crystal whatever is particularly nasty
take on autoconf, probably one of
the best examples in support of asciilifeform's rants.
mircea_popescu: nothing wrong with
this. but also no solution
to problem.
phf: fwiw
trb and eulora have opposite goals as far as exposure
mircea_popescu: phf once management has put compatibility on your list of
targets, you can say
that all you want, best done in a mutter under own beard.
mircea_popescu: in other, unrelated-ish sad :
to
this day, "web development" has no javascript
tree shaker.
phf: well, since asciilifeform's not here "let
them eat nagant! wake me up when less stupid people!"
☟︎ phf: i
think at best it could be
trimmed down, but i
think even
that's doable by limiting
the number of m4 macros used for includes. or perhaps being very specific with what you want. "i need gcc 4" will necessarily be less messy
than "i need a c compiler", considering
that most of
the
time
the program is not ready
to deal with wide range of compilers anyway
mircea_popescu: except it will appear
to, for a briefd interval at first.
then it will create friction between purists and inclusionists, which is just about as dumb drama as livejournal disputes.
mircea_popescu: and
trying
to implement a "better" autoconf, even "by hand", will not result in anything better
☟︎ phf: but autoconf being at
the subtrate level is
testament
to "unix won", its purpose
to give you details about "what's unix" given
the
tools
that are available at
the most abstract level of unixness
mircea_popescu: of course
the process and its result will be horrifying.
mircea_popescu: ok, but i mean... so we drive nails with screwdriver because
that's what we got.
phf: new
takes on build systems suffer, because
they rely on high level languages. and if your vendor didn't provide you with perl or python, you're back
to squire one "how do i compile my build system on
this machine"
phf: i say it's a chicken and egg problem, because you know you can get vendor versions of posix
tools (and
then still reduce
the available "language" even more, by
taking away some features
that might be missing in nominally posix sh on some obscure system), but you can't really do anything else, until you established some
truths about your environment
☟︎ phf: but fwiw even if openbsd, say, will give you a similar compilation environment, it's not going
to give you bash out of
the box. it's ksh, so you're back
to "least common sh denominator"
phf: hence asciilifeform's "don't compile
this on VMS" comment.
phf: neither were designed for programming, sh is rudimentary even by bash standards. on linux sh is linked
to bash, but elsewhere you might actually encounter a barely posix
take on it.
phf: there are no arrays. you literally don't get better storage
than "text in a variable".
there's very limited math. even expressing something simple "do
this n
times" is pain.
phf: i
think
the reason is
that
the sh/m4 combo is particularly well suited for what you call parsing. really it's very well suited at "expanding code". it's wholly inadequate for building compilers
mircea_popescu: heck, gcc is not much better
than a
three pass parser most of
the
time.
mircea_popescu: which really, isn't also parsed in
the way lisp is also parsed because people are emotionally attached, and no other reason.
mircea_popescu: and parsing is uniquely inadequate for its
task. in fact, its
task is more adequate
to compiling
than c code is.
mircea_popescu: basically, seems
to me most, or at least a good chunk of autoconf problems as described by alf come from
the fact
that it
tries
to parse, rather
than compile. in
the abstract sense of
these
terms.
☟︎ phf: need
to compile c code is already about 50 checks (do have "NULL"? do we have "malloc"?), but i follow
mircea_popescu: and sure, maybe d1 = "need
to compile c code" in which case "check for d1" means "do we have a way
to compile c code on
this system ? ok, what is it ? and how is it invoked ? ok here we go
then :"
mircea_popescu: let's work with an abstract example. suppose
there's project X, which can for
the purpose of configure be reduced
to a list of n lines, whereby each line produces a dependency from
the list of D1- D5 by
the criterion
that line# mod 5. so a sane autoconf will read
the whole list, produce a list reading "d1, d2, d3, d4, d5" and
then proceed
to check
these. once. five fucking checks, five lines of checking.
phf: well, so sh/m4 are dumb. one is a very primitive programming language (no portable notion of arrays for example, so "read all lines" "create a list" is not a straightforward
thing),
the other one is a
templating language
phf: programming in sh/m4 combination is not a sane
thing
phf: so you either rely on
those, or you have a chicken and egg problem (how do i compile c without knowing how
to compile c)
mircea_popescu: rather
than "read line, check if we checked, check" wouldn't it be saner
to "read all lines, create list of checks, check list" ?
phf: afaiu it's because of subtrate problem.
there are some programs
that are specified in posix, so
they are going
to be on every system. sh, m4, already compiled by vendor.
mircea_popescu: i don't even understand why does it parse rather
than compile, for instance. seems a very nutty design decision.
phf: automake is distinctly not magic. it's a
text interpolation macro system. i'm pretty sure
there's not even a
tree shaker
there (i.e. if you check for gcc, you check for gcc every
time something says "i need gcc". only reason it's not done a dozen of
times is because
there's also a check "did i check for gcc already?". never
the less all
those dozen gcc checks end up in ./configure)
mircea_popescu: in any case,
the whole discussion is about "something like automake" in
the sense of "gimme magic"
mircea_popescu: oh what sweet delusion, "opengl will handle
things for you".