Re: [MacPerl] XS Modules, porting, MMP

[Arved Sandstrom <Arved_37@chebucto.ns.ca>]

On Tue, 23 Nov 1999, Matthew Langford wrote:

> How does one submit requests to the www.pudge.net/mmp keepers?  I ask
> on-list, because surely others want to do this, too.
>
Right now, just like you did it. :-)
 
> The module in mind has an XS portion:  HTML::Parser_XS.
>
Duly noted. I'll take a gander at it.
 
> Some thoughts on Macs, CPAN, and XS modules...
> 
> I notice that keeping up with frequent CPAN updates is futile without
> vastly more Mac manpower.  There are too many modules with binaries
> getting updated too often.
>
Agreed. My main motivation for doing the tutorials (on the MacPerl Pages)
on XS and SWIG were to illustrate the process and get more folks doing
their own XS. I don't know if I succeeded.

Certainly the stuff comes out too quickly. Apart from a few specific
modules I personally only react (now) to a specific request. Some CPAN
authors (naming no names) are way too prolific, especially when it comes
to introducing features or just rewriting their code, in the matter of new
versions. Just my opinion.
 
> What about this (he says, leaning back and dreaming of code for someone
> else to write :) :
> 
> I was thinking about writing a droplet that would take a targzip file like
> install, but instead look for XS files.  If it found some, it would run
> them through xsubpp, then try to AppleScript CodeWarrior through making a
> project, adding the files, and compiling.  [I know, this would only work
> for the simplest XS projects, but suspend your disbelief for a little
> while.]  It would take the shared library built, put that back into the
> package, and build a Mac distribution from that.  
> 
> If the distribution was unexpectedly complex, or the compilation had
> errors, or whatever else, the script could crap out with an appropriate
> error message.
> 
[ Rest snipped ]

I actually think that what you suggest would work quite well, in terms of
the pure automation of the process. Possible major hitch is requiring
other libraries, which are there on UNIX but not on MacOS.

The process automation is not really the issue. For people that have MPW
the process has been automated all along. The main problem is that the
majority of XS builds "crap out", as you put it.

ActiveState doesn't track CPAN XS all that well, either, for the same
reasons. It's a lot of work trying to figure out what is worth hacking and
what isn't. Life would be a lot easier if XS packages had some kind of
Makefile flag called IS_PORTABLE, or something. :-)

Arved Sandstrom



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