On Apr 23, 2:08 am, root <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Hi Tim,
> >I feel that I have done more than a reasonable amount of work here. Do > >you agree or disagree? > > Have you done a reasonable amount of work? That's for you to judge > since you're the person with the need. > > But lets see what seems to be going on with Clisp. > > Sam's reply to you seems to be that you need a certain combination of > operating systems and compilers and libraries to generate a supported > build. (This is very similar to the reply to my Sage bug report, > essentially "fix your compiler".) So the expected response would be > for you to reinstall Solaris to the "correct" version with the > "correct" libraries and the bug goes away. Asking a user to "fix > their system" is not a valid response but that seems to be the essence > of the replies. > > Ask yourself why you might get this kind of response. Ok, you do not know the complete history of emails and many of them were in private. To set the record clear: * I have build various toolchains on that box, i.e. 25+ packages and ** gcc 3.4.6 ** gcc 4.0.3 ** gcc 4.1.2 ** gcc 4.2.2 [** Sun Forte - but I didn't compile that] With those compilers I have attempted to compile * clisp CVS numerous times * clisp 2.39 * clisp 2.40 * clisp 2.41 * clisp 2.42 * clisp 2.43 * clisp 2.43.1 * clisp 2.44 * clisp 2.44.1 With all tricks, i.e. "-O0" and so on. Some of them actually compile and I get a working clisp binary. *None* of them get even close to pass "make check". *None* of them are able to compile Maxima with the clisp binaries that actually started up. I have poked around in the code and found it hard to read and difficult to understand. Now I might not be so bright, but it is quite an odd coincidence that a) All 5 million lines of code of Sage compile more or less out of the box [2, 3 patches are needed, clisp usually doesn't build] - and I did most of the work there b) http://trac.sagemath.org/sage_trac/query?status=assigned&status=closed&owner=mabshoff&order=priority [380 closed tickers, second only to William] I am far, far from some idiot n00b who can't compile his way out of a paper bag. I have been doing this professionally for close to fifteen years. > Sam (and Camm) may have time constraints. I know that Camm does the > work in his free time. I know Camm is working on a massive rewrite > (probably NOT in public). I don't know what Sam does for a living but > I suspect his work is also a free time activity. I never claimed or alluded to the fact that Sam and/or Camm are incompetent. I am sure they are *very* competent. If they have day jobs they can only work so much on clisp/gcl. But my conclusion looking at the state of the projects they lead is that the code is subpar - at least for my purposes. > Axiom is also free > time support. Dormant bug reports are not an indication of inactivity. > Sage may have a few bug reports that are a few months old. Clisp is > free software. You have the source code, you have the need, post a > patch. No, my conclusion is to dump clisp. > Sam (and Camm) may have hardware/operating system constraints. > Possibly the boxen that they use are borrowed and they cannot > reproduce your exact environment. I have 9 physical machines here with > 32 virtual boxen and I still cannot reproduce all of the > combinations. I don't have access to a Sparc, for instance. Sam has an account on *that* box I am doing the work on. If he chooses not to use it: Well, I don't have to use clisp. Solaris 9 and 10 isn't some run-of-the-mill Unix. Its configuration is very homogeneous and I am not trying to run clisp on my toaster with netbsd and some odd toolchain. Sage wants to play with the big boys and that means Linux Itanium, Solaris on Sparc, PPC64 boxen by IBM and hopefully soon HPUX 11i on Itanium. If clisp doesn't want to go there: fine by me. But I do not feel an obligation to help *anybody*. *You* do not pay my salary, so I while I want to be a nice guy in general I can very much decide on my own what to do. > Sourceforge took down their compile farm and HP doesn't have a large > set in their farm. Axiom runs in many more places than I publish but > there are outstanding build issues so I won't claim it "runs" anywhere > but on a published subset of combinations. You do the same thing > (e.g. no redhat9 gcc x.x.x). I did ask Google, Microsoft, and > Sourceforge to put up compile farms but nothing happened. If we > all used a "standard compile farm" this problem might be minimized. > For now, though, the odds are good that Sam does not have your > Solaris machine configuration and cannot reproduce your bug. HP has a massive number of machines available at their compile farm. Sam has access to the machine in question as I mentioned above. > We are both in the same business; you package Sage to run everywhere > and I package Axiom to run everywhere. As soon as you touch anything > at all, something breaks. When GCL breaks, I post a patch and locally > apply the patch until it is accepted upstream (if at all). If Clisp > fails for you then fix it, post a patch, locally apply the patch > until it gets applied upstream, and move on. Well, as state above the decision has been made: symbolics in Cython is being written and has been funded. On top of that we can do * Maxima+ecls * Maxima+clisp [this would likely mean that we would be looking for alternative like giac] > It is not a question of "reasonable amount of work". > It is a question of expectations. Well, I don't expect to use clisp much longer. > What, exactly, do you expect? Instant, top-of-the-pile bug fixes on > all of YOUR hardware/software combinations? This is free and open > source software. The only thing you can expect is to get the source > code so you can fix it and post a patch. Everything else is not in the > contract. That's why people pay for software. Franz would be willing > to fix your issues immediately. I'm not sure your check to Sam has > cleared yet. If you don't want to build patches then send Sam a > contract. I'm sure he'd be happy to get paid. Well, I have offered hardware and expertise. It hasn't solved the problem. Since I don't want to pay to maintain clisp my conclusion is to either move to a free and open source lisp that works or get the wheels in motion to dump all code in Sage that depends on it. I have given back for years in the Open Source community and I am not expecting wonders here. I will be an essential part to port a *massive* numbers of mathematical and other code in Sage to Windows. So I am not some leech sitting on the sideline and complaining that the people doing the work for free aren't getting shit done. > Sage will have this same > problem in the future as various package maintainers move on or you > can no longer reach your Sparc. Sure, but we have some sugar daddy who buys us hardware we need. Picking up a used Sparc runs a couple hundred dollars. Buying a reasonable Sparc new isn't exactly big money either. > What if your expectations are not fulfilled? Well, that generally > leads to anger and frustration, both natural reactions. But it seems > that you have used "hasty generalization" to conclude that Lisp is > dead. And from there to conclude that Lisp should be removed from > everywhere. That's a shame because Maxima contains an astonishing > amount of well debugged algorithms by recognized experts in the field. > > And characterizing Lisps like SBCL (fork of CMUCL, child of the CMU > Spice Lisp research project) as "polishing a turd", implies that > Scott Fahlman wasted his time studying dynamic language optimization > in compilers. I did say that about clisp and gcl. I stated that in public and have no problem defending my opinion. I don't hate lisp, I hate crap implementation of anything. > Python has yet to even think about these issues, most > of which have already been solved by Scott. Yes, I know that some people had to walk to school uphill both ways :) But in earnest here: After this barrage of issues [also by Gaby or Ondrej's comment about the Debian source deb]: how can you pretend that the lisp world is one happy place where things work? > Everywhere else in Sage > I see people struggle over milliseconds. Then I see Maxima built on > Clisp (an interpreter) rather than SBCL, a optimizing compiler. > > Ultimately the point of my post was that, despite not seeing immediate > results, it is STILL worthwhile to post bug reports. At minimum, other > people can google them and find that they also have the problem. Well, I won't. The chapter is closed for me. Looking at the gcl bug tracker there is plenty of work to do. > As for your original question, if your bug reports contain a patch > THEN you've done a reasonable amount of work, at least by my > definition of "reasonable". Your definition might differ. We have to disagree here. > Tim I don't want this discussion to go out of hand [too late], but ultimately this is all about what is best for the Sage project. And my opinion there counts a whole lot more in that regard than yours, just as my opinion about Axiom is totally irrelevant. Cheers, Michael --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URLs: http://www.sagemath.org -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
