If anyone said including our own compiler with Sage is taking the "batteries included" approach too far, I would NOT disagree with them,
But there do appear to be issues which may be difficult / impossible to resolve with Sage upgrades using gcc that uses Sage's GMP, MPFR and MPC (See Leif's comments on this issue). We could avoid that by shipping our own gcc. I calculate it would add only 1.6 MB to the bulk of Sage if we used the latest (4.5.1) gcc and could *reduce* the size of Sage if we used an earlier version. Given gcc 4.5.1 is 63 MB in size, you might wonder why I calculate shipping gcc would add <= 1.6 MB. First we would not need the Java or Objective C front ends, so there's no need to include the full gcc release. So we would add a package which includes only: * gcc core (27 MB) * C++ front end (6.2 MB) * Fortran front end (1.4 MB) Then we REMOVE the Fortran binaries, which are only needed on OS X. These take up 33 MB. sage: 27+6.2+1.4-33 1.60000000000000 sage: Pros: * No worries about gcc finding the wrong libraries during upgrades, as it would use those in $SAGE_LOCAL/lib * We would know what version of gcc people would using, so would not have to contend with gcc-specific bugs. * Building on Solaris would be a lot easier, as nobody would need to install a recent gcc. * We could remove the code in bits of Sage that checks if g95 or gcc is used, since we know gcc would be used. * We could remove the code in ATLAS (and perhaps elsewhere) which tests if g95 or gfortran are used. * We could forget about setting SAGE_FORTRAN and SAGE_FORTRAN_LIB variables as they would be unneeded. * If instead of using the latest gcc, we used an earlier version, we would undoubtedly make the compiler package smaller than the Fortran binaries we remove. Cons: * It would make Sage 1.6 MB larger * It would slow builds on any system where the Sage gcc was used in preference to a system one. It would be sensible to add a bit of code that allows one to use the system compilers. Dave -- To post to this group, send an email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to sage-devel+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URL: http://www.sagemath.org
