[Axiom-developer] asdf

[C Y]

--- Bill Page <address@hidden> wrote:

> > Indeed, an ASDF based version of Axiom will completely enclose
> > the whole issue into a proper lisp build framework and the
> > whole build process can disappear.
> 
> I simply don't believe this statement at all.

Other issues aside Bill, asdf is in fact quite powerful.

Obviously the build process won't disappear entirely - what Tim means
is that the dependence of Axiom's build on machinery external to the
lisp environment will disappear.  This is probably true to a fairly
large extent, and I think will be a Good Thing for portability,
simplicity, etc.

Maxima is actually an excellent example of this in practice.  Maxima
builds using the configure make make-install routine, but most of the
core logic of things like build order is contained in defsystem, which
is a competitor/predecessor to asdf.  It is possible to build Maxima
entirely within a lisp environment - configure and friends act
basically as convenience interfaces to the lisp build process, while
also picking up a few non-lisp details like xmaxima.

Now of course, the self-containment aspect is practical only for the
parts of the system that are written in lisp, or a language implemented
in lisp.  Building other components in other languages like C are not
going to be as straightforward, but hopefully we will be able to
operate almost entirely in a lisp environment in the future and in that
situation the potential to simplify matters is considerable (think the
old cmucl port, for example).

However, asdf will most likely require that Axiom work in ANSI lisp. 
So it's a long term measure.  The beauty of Gaby's autoconf work is
that it can handle the current situation, but can also gradually and
gracefully be scaled back as more build logic gets added into lisp
without loss of functionality.

Eventually, what will hopefully happen is that configure and friends
will become the "public face" to the lisp build process, as in Maxima
today.  If Windows has other "standard" build methods than autoconf we
could trigger the lisp build process using those as well - making
maintaining them a minimal amount of work.  I think using asdf is a
good idea and one of the exciting possibilities opened up by ANSI
porting.

When I played around with Axiom on sbcl, I tried using asdf and found
it quite interesting.  Unfortunately, it seems to result in a more
finicky situation where code that would normally (e.g during a load)
just give out warnings cause failures instead, which halted my progress
at bookvol5.lisp.  (Or maybe this is good, since it forces one to
confront the issues - dunno.)  

Of course, that leaves organizing the code using asdf, which in turn
involves the little detail of understanding what the code is doing...
;-)

Cheers,
CY


 
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