Re: [Gcl-devel] Re: "COMMON-LISP" package in GCL 2.5.0

[Matt Kaufmann]

Hi --

Thanks for your reply.  Comments are interspersed below.

   Cc: address@hidden, address@hidden
   From: Camm Maguire <address@hidden>
   Date: 23 Aug 2002 11:23:06 -0400

   Greetings!  I've had opportunity to build the acl2 sources using gcl,
   and did the regression test after downloading the additional
   workbooks.  

Great!

   1) I could package this for Debian pretty easily.  It would of course
      provide another integrity test for gcl.  And it would at one time
      make binaries of acl2 available for 10 architectures. But would
      such a package prove useful to anyone, i.e. an end user?  Is this
      just of theoretical interest?

I can certainly imagine ACL2 users benefiting from such a package.  I'm not
very familiar with such issues, but presumably the idea is that any user of
ACL2 on top of Debian would benefit.

   2) If it were packaged, I'd want to put an integrity test in to verify
      the build, but it shouldn't be arbitrarily long, especially as
      Debian runs on some very slow machines.  I'd appreciate a good
      suggestion. 

We have a simple test that only takes a few seconds.  I could add a Makefile
target for that if you like.  Also, without the workshop books the suite takes
about an hour and a half on a fast machine.  I could certainly create something
between those extremes; just tell me how much time you'd like the suite to take
on a pretty fast machine.

   3) I take it the additional workbooks should be distributed as well? 

I don't think that's necessary.  Presumably those who want the workshop books
can download the tar file and untar it in the appropriate directory.  Note by
the way that the distribution should not include the files created by the
tests; those include generated .cert files with absolute pathnames.

   4) Since it appears that the people at U Texas use Debian, one
      scenario might be for me to upload the package if it is useful, and
      for some more knowledgeable person (i.e. someone who works with it
      regularly) to maintain it.  Such a person could apply to be a
      Debian developer, or just field bug reports as they come in with me
      overseeing the uploads.  Any thoughts?

Neither of us (myself or J Moore) have time ourselves.  I'll send some queries
and I (or someone) will let you know if we have any takers.

   Take care,
   -- 
   Camm Maguire                                         address@hidden
   ==========================================================================
   "The earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens."  --  Baha'u'llah

Thanks --
-- Matt