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[Stewart Brodie]

"David J. Ruck" <druck at druck.org.uk> wrote:

> Christian Ludlam <christian at recoil.org> wrote:
> > Well I always used to, but cvs update obviously didn't work, and DefMod
> > no longer has a RISC OS makefile - it's not just out of date, it's not
> > even there any more.
> 
> I am unhappy about RISC OS losing the ability to build its own core
> libraries, which reduces its status a subsidary device rather than a full
> development platform.

A fundamental lack of speed is what makes it unsuitable as a development
platform, primarily.  Just imagine how much more you could get done if you
could shorten the edit/compile/test cycle by building the software 10-20
times faster[*].  I still get irritated at work nowadays as when I edit one
source file, builds (of Galio, not RO!, on my dual CPU 3GHz Linux box) still
take 10 seconds.  There's no such thing as build that is fast enough, until
it's instant.  If I was developing software or doing a port of anything to
RISC OS, there is absolutely no way I would even contemplate building on
RISC OS.

I put a lot of effort into converting all the RISC OS modules' sources'
makefiles so that they could be cross-compiled from Linux (and Solaris),
which was the original driver behind my modifications to make defmod
portable and OSLib itself.  I don't know whether anybody cross-compiles the
OS nowadays, or whether they still waste their time sitting around twiddling
their thumbs waiting for builds.  In the late 1990s, when I was doing that
work, being able to make changes to OSLib and rebuild it from clean in 45
seconds made development so much easier compared to the 45+ minutes it took
on StrongARM Risc PCs.


> The gcc team have also gone in this direction with unixlib, and given some
> of their statements its probably only a matter of time before they no
> longer bother making the compiler run on RISC OS, and all builds will have
> to be done under linux.

Given the number of people who actually require the use of the compiler, I
wouldn't be surprised if they concluded that it simply was a waste of their
time trying to maintain something that perhaps a dozen people might use.

Then again, last time I tried to download and install the Linux x RISC OS
cross-compiler, I failed miserably.  Nothing I tried worked.  I didn't
understand the instructions at all - and I'm not exactly an idiot: I've
configured, built and installed all sorts of weird combinations of gcc-based
cross-compilers and glibc etc.  I have no idea how other people manage.
Since I was only doing it out of mild curiosity anyway and saw the reaction
that other people got when they complained they couldn't get it working, I
just abandonned the idea.  I don't know why this turned into a rant - sorry.



[*] that being the order by which full OS builds were sped up, rather than
60x which OSLib itself experienced due the nature of the OSLib source

-- 
Stewart Brodie