Re: [Demexp-dev] Compilation of demexp

[David MENTRE]

Hello Sylvain,

2006/1/17, Sylvain Chevillard <address@hidden>:
> ./configure mentions some things about my caml installation but nothing
> about my system. Maybe you just don't log it.

Yes.

> I'm surprised you can't do it yourself : can an unused variable be
> something architecture specific ?

This is just because I'm using old OCaml 3.08.3 on Debian Sarge and
OCaml developers have added new warnings on unused variable in 3.09
release. ;-)

> Yes, it's great. I want to try both the client and the server. I'm very
> interested in demexp and want to try the client with your servers ; but
> I want also to launch a server myself to understand how all this stuff
> functions and maybe to use it eventually to take decision in some
> associations.

Feel free to ask if you want to more information on server setup and
so on. This is not very well documented (if at all) because I'm also
the admin of our own demexp servers. :-)


> See the attached files log.server*

Thank you. I'll try to fix obvious things shortly.


> I'd end with three remarks :
> 1) You don't seem to know that the binary you provide for Mac OS X
> doesn't work. When you try to run it, you have the following error :
> dyld: ./macosx-demexp-gtk2-client-0.6 can't open library:
> /Users/fponscar/godi/lib/libcurl.3.dylib  (No such file or directory,
> errno = 2)

Ough! Didn't know about that. :-( Nodody in the demexp core team is
using Mac OS X. And our occasional Mac demexp developer has been "lost
in space". ;-)

> Indeed, I first tried to compile the client for that reason.
> Actually, you should remove it from download and from the wiki and
> maybe provide a more sophisticated documentation to compile under Mac
> OS X. It is not a simple task since there are a lot of dependencies to
> compile demexp and I'm on it for one or two weeks. But it should be
> possible to make a specific tutorial. I can try to do it if you want.

Yes, it would be very nice. Feel free to correct information on the
Wiki and add necessary documentation.
The wiki to use is :
  http://demexp.org/en/doku.php#articles_and_discussions_on_software_development

The french one (for final user documentation) is:
  http://demexp.org/fr/doku.php?id=start

Ideally, it would be nice to have an Mac OS X installer with needed
libraries, as for the Windows version.

> 2) It is a bit hard to find the sources of demexp. When you are in the
> wiki you click and re-click and, one time, randomly, you finally find
> the link to the sources. You should probably give a link to the sources
> in the "download page" (except if you intentionnaly decided to not  put
> it here).

Fixed. Let me know if it is more clear now.



> 3) I don't understand perfectly the philosophical and practical
> difference between static linking and dynamic linkning

Practical difference :
Static linking : no linking to external library libraries when the
binary is launched.

Philisophical difference : dynamic linking allows to change the
libraries that the program is relying on, for example to add new
functionnalities. This is certainly why Mac OS X is against static
linking, as it is designed upon NextStep grounds and is very
object-oriented.

On Linux, dynamic linking means maintenance nightmare. ;-)

With dynalic linking, one should find a way to provide all needed
libraries, which is not always easy.

> but since it
> seems to be impossible to link statically under Mac OS X, you should
> fix it, at least modifying the configure script to take it in account.

Yep. I'll add that to the todo list.

Best wishes,
d.