Re: clisp - general interest in code cleanup

I hope this is now "close enough" to a proposal in order to be reviewed:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1VEwlAhA-YNEYiBHzz4jWS9BnRMdxgwF71ihqRdP58uY/edit?usp=sharing

Daniel

2016-03-25 3:32 GMT+01:00 Daniel Jour <[email protected]>:
> Hi Sam,
>
> Sam Steingold writes:
>> this approach does not scale.
>
> Can you elaborate on that a bit? As I already wrote to Don, it's just
> the way I'm used to, based on previous experiences, but I'm completely
> open to learn :) (I'm completely self-taught and have never received
> any mentoring or - real, useful - teaching in "programming").
>
>
>> all files include lispbibl.d, so this means that all files use them. :-)
>
> Hehe, what I meant was more like: There seems to be versions of
> alloca, an avl tree, sorting code, safe malloc and more in CLISP's code
> that could be also provided by gnulib. That's what's confusing me: Are
> these separate versions on purpose, or just not yet replaced by the
> Gnulib ones?
>
>>>> 2. fix gnulib/Windows interaction (gnulib assumes FD to be an int,
>>>>    Windows uses Handles)
>>>
>>> Can you provide a bit more background on that? Is this related to
>>> http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-gnulib/2016-03/msg00033.html and
>>> thus a general gnulib issue? Or does this only affect CLISP?
>>
>> this is a general property of gnulib.
>> clisp used to work around this, but the latest import of gnulib files (5
>> years ago?) broke it.
>> IIRC, clisp no longer builds on windows.
>
> I think it builds on cygwin with Ken's patches, but not "native" windows.
> I'll try to get a windows machine / vm up in order to check this.
>
> What's the general course of action here? Fix it in gnulib (as far as that's
> possible, eventually using it's local modules feature) or work around "here"?
>
> What priority do non cygwin builds on windows have? Targeting mingw or
> the microsoft compilers?
>
>
>>> How "extensive" are these self-tests?
>>
>> there are a lot of them and they cover most of the code.
>> (modules have their own tests).
>
> I found them, they're awesome.
>
>
>>> I guess I should get a proposal ready ASAP then.
>>
>> please do!
>
> Work is in progress, I have rough version that's ready for sharing soon.
> Due to the limited time left I add some notes here to start with:
>
> -- Title: CLISP - Make a release (finally)
> -- Summary:
> CLISP has seen its last release in 2010, almost 6 years ago.
> Since then there have been a lot of changes, partly implemented features
> and bug fixes. In combination with an import of Gnulib modules this
> resulted in a code base that is no longer portable and not suitable for a
> release. The purpose of this project is to fix the portability issues and to
> cleanly include suitable Gnulib modules, allowing a new release with the
> improvements of the past years to be published.
>
> --Raw notes regarding plan:
> * Get a complete picture of the code, especially what's broken on non linux
> platforms.
> * Get rid of (probably? almost) everything that can be provided by a suitable
> gnulib module, using the most up to date version of gnulib (replace one part,
> then run self tests, update doc, repeat). Potentially extending self tests.
> * Fix gnulib on Windows. At least "enough" for CLISP to work.
> * Mid-term: core CLISP builds and passes self tests on Linux, BSD, Mac and
> Windows.
> * update CLISP modules
> * include useful (not yet used) patches and changes. It might be worthwhile to
> think about holding back (possibly reverting) some half-finished changes here,
> keeping them for a next release until they're finished (multithreading? jit?)
> * general clean up of code and implementation notes ("polishing for the
> release", so to say)
> * Finally: release.
>
> -- Skills I already “have”: C and Lisp, knowledge of memory management and
> garbage collection as well as general VM/bytecode design and compiler
> building. GNU make, Shell programming, general Linux competence.
>
> -- Things I need to learn: Proper usage (as a developer) of the autotools and
> the GNU build system, “hands on experience” regarding release process(es),
> probably understanding CLISP's VM in depth will help, and finally how to
> achieve portability to a lot of platforms. Update of my knowledge of windows
> programming (it's been a while).
>
> Sam, do you think that I should include references to previous work? Most
> helpful is probably my stackoverflow.com account .. since my github repositories
> ... ehm .. aren't exactly neat and tidy and contain only a small
> (largely outdated)
> fraction of the stuff I've been doing all the years :)
>
> Regarding communication: I'm best reached via email, but starting early-mid
> April irc becomes an option, too, though I'm constrained regarding time of day.
> This might be an issue if you'd like (very) frequent real time communication.
> There's not much planned during the coding (and bonding) time span, apart
> from a possible holiday of probably a week early August. My exams are at the
> end of July, though that won't interfere (I'm thankfully learning fast
> and was able
> to complete this semesters exams with top scores without being present
> or investing
> much time during the semester. This has been the same for the last semesters, so
> I'm very sure that this will work.)
>
> Do I need to explicitly mention you in the proposal, or is this GNU
> internally sorted out?
>
> Looking forward to some feedback (if still possible, I know that only a bit more
> than 16 hours left isn't exactly "much time")
>
> Daniel
>
>> --
>> Sam Steingold (http://sds.podval.org/) on Ubuntu 15.10 (wily) X 11.0.11702000
>> http://www.childpsy.net/ http://memri.org http://islamexposedonline.com
>> http://honestreporting.com http://truepeace.org http://think-israel.org
>> God had a deadline, so He wrote it all in Lisp.

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