s713221 at student.gu.edu.au wrote: > > > > Wow Windows and Quality Assurance in the same paragraph.... what's the > > > world coming to? > > > > > > BTW isn't Windows Quality Assurance an oxymoron? > > > > I didn't say we quality assured windows. Just that we do quality > > assurance ON windows. Quality assurance on unstable, inconsistent > > platforms consists of figuring out what workarounds are necessary in > > what circumunstances! We had some doozies getting out ActivePython on > > e.g. Windows 95...and that was after all of the work the core team put > > into Win95 compatibility themselves! > > Kinda sounds like trying to build an arched cathedral on quicksand. Yeah, I know what you mean. I just got involved with a new OS, and I think it's built on quicksand too. I installed Redhat Linux 7.0 awhile back, and I've been trying to get it to compile stuff. I've tried about a half-dozen Gnu packages, some big and some small. I did the usual "configure/make/make install" dance. (Kindda like goin' to a hoe-down. Yee haw!) In all cases except "indent", the process halted somewhere along the way. And for those of you who've ever tried to work through problems like this, you know that the Gnu configure/make process is the biggest, most complicated, most opaque pond of quicksand you'll ever find: the nested include files alone'll probably kill you--if you don't drown in preprocessor directives first. I also had a problem compiling Python 2.1. (Since it's not a Gnu package, I thought I might have a fighting chance of compiling it on the "Gnu/Linux" system <wink>.) But it seems that the Python source code does a "#error" on something about "LONG_BIT". Go figure. So I hit Dejanews (or whatever they're calling it these days <wink>) and found out that this is caused by the fact that I need a new glibc; the one that ships with Redhat 7.0 is defective. (It seems that Redhat comes with gcc 2.96 which doesn't actually exist; 2.95 is the latest one.) So I downloaded an "errata" rpm for glibc and installed it. Or at least I tried. The rpm installer then complained about "glibc-common = 2", or something silly like that. Well, obviously. So then I downloaded a new glibc-common and tried to install that. But rpm puked. (I was beginning to see a pattern here...) Well, thank goodness for Dejanews (or whatever they're calling it these days <wink>). I researched the problem, and in a matter of minutes found posts which said that you've got to install both glibc and glibc-common using the _same_ rpm command. Well, obviously. In fact, in one post, the guy said he was distressed that Redhat didn't bother to tell you that. I feel his pain. Anyway, I tried installing both using the same rpm command--what do you know?--the darn thing actually worked! A whole bunch of "#'s" came out of it. I didn't know quite what that ment, but I hadn't seen that before, so it seemed like a good sign. Best of all, rpm told me it had succeeded. Great! Next, I tried to compile Python 2.1. But then I had _another_ unexpected problem. It seems that the Python source code does a #error on something about "LONG_BIT". Quicksand. OK, back to the drawing board. I realized that I hadn't been a Good Boy and applied the "Errata" CD that came with my Redhat package. (As best I can tell "Errata CD" is a euphemism for that all-purpose cathedral mortar, the "Service Pack" <wink>.) But the Errata CD only installed a couple of things, and they aren't related to compilation, so (not surprisingly) the Python and Gnu stuff still won't compile. But I kept trying to give the broken Redhat Linux cathedral another chance. After all, isn't that the cathedral that's most beloved by The Holier Than Thou? So I kept trying. One large package that I was able to compile successfully on the "Gnu/Linux" system is wxWindows. Everything I tried in the wxWindows package compiled and ran flawlessly. (Heck, that's nearly as good as the experiences I have compiling software that comes bundled with Microsoft Visual C++ project files <wink>.) I'm not sure if the fact that it's not a Gnu package helped here, but I can't see how it could have hurt. BTW, a couple of years ago, I had tried out the "Cygwin" system. (For those who don't know, Cygwin is a compatibility layer that provides a Unix-like environment to allow Gnu-style software to be compiled.) I had many bad experiences with it, and I eventually decided that it just basically didn't work (at least at that time). In particular, I was baffled by the fact that even simple ANSI C text-in/text-out programs like "indent" wouldn't compile. (Frankly, anybody who writes an ANSI C text-in/text-out program that doesn't compile on Windows isn't trying. Or maybe they're secretly throwing stones at the other guy's cathedral <wink>.) But then somebody told me that it really isn't natural to make Unix run on Windows. That seemed to make sense, so the answer seemed to be to use a *true* Unix-style OS like Linux. So, more recently, I have gone to a great deal of trouble to repartition my hard disk and install Redhat Linux 7.0 Silly me. the-bad-thing-about-Gnu's-quicksand-is-that-it's-recursive-ly y'rs, =g2 -- _____________________________________________________________________ Grant R. Griffin g2 at dspguru.com Publisher of dspGuru http://www.dspguru.com Iowegian International Corporation http://www.iowegian.com
RetroSearch is an open source project built by @garambo | Open a GitHub Issue
Search and Browse the WWW like it's 1997 | Search results from DuckDuckGo
HTML:
3.2
| Encoding:
UTF-8
| Version:
0.7.4