RE: [gawk-devel] MPFR thoughts

[pjfarley3]

Not intending to bring up old flames or other far-too-extended past
discussions of the subject, but unless things have changed since I last
reviewed them then using gawk extensions requires the user to have ability
and the knowledge and the time to recompile gawk and the extensions to gain
access to their functionality.

If the gawk extensions had been pre-packaged as binary capabilities for all
commonly available gawk platforms (as IMHO they should have been from the
beginning) (e.g., stable/LTS versions of Debian, ubuntu, centos, and Win10
platforms) then they would have seen and would see far more use "in the
field", especially for non-*ix system users.  Building extensions may be
nearly trivial on *ix systems, but on other platforms it is not nearly so
easy.

I know this is a *really* sore point with some members of this list, but for
me it is a "gee, I'm sorry they don't see it this way" moment.  It makes me
sad, not mad, and I am one of those who do have (most of) the knowledge to
assemble the tools and components needed to perform the required rebuilds.
It is the allocation of the time and effort needed, not to mention keeping
up with the bug fixes and enhancements.  I mainly need the use of the tools,
not the effort needed to build and maintain them too.

Whenever asked, I will make any financial contribution in my capability that
is needed to support toolmakers and tool builders, but I am not one of them.
I suspect many gawk users are not (by and large) toolmakers or builders
either.

As for the subject at hand, my comment would be that I have yet to have any
real-world need for MPFR in gawk.  If it were removed from the base code I
would not miss it in the least.

With respect and thanks to all the toolmakers and builders, without whom we
are all far poorer.

Peter

> -----Original Message-----
> From: bug-gawk <bug-gawk-bounces+pjfarley3=earthlink.net@gnu.org> On
> Behalf Of Andrew J. Schorr
> Sent: Saturday, May 7, 2022 10:01 PM
> To: Eric Pruitt <eric.pruitt@gmail.com>
> Cc: arnold@skeeve.com; ormos-gnulists17@ormos.org; bug-gawk@gnu.org
> Subject: Re: [gawk-devel] MPFR thoughts
> 
> Hi,
> 
> On Sat, May 07, 2022 at 01:45:53PM -0700, Eric Pruitt wrote:
> > How often do people post messages on the list praising a particular
> > feature? I find MPFR support useful, and I similarly find the "match"
> > function useful, but it never occurred to me that use of either
> > feature warranted proactive communication.
> 
> OK, so it's clear that at least a few people are using the MPFR
capability.
> On the other hand, it required extensive patches to gawk's internals to
add this
> feature, and it's been painful to support. So my question for those people
who
> are using MPFR is: how difficult would it be for you to use the gawk-mpfr
> extension library instead? That seems like the cleaner way for gawk to
support
> MPFR. It's not as easy to use, but it allows us to simplify core gawk and
the
> extension API.
> 
> Regards,
> Andy