[snip]
>Hi, Takeshi
>
>Once you solve this problem I'd be interested in getting your feedback on
>the state of the current MacPerl + XS tutorial. Also Thomas Wegner's
>feedback, and anyone else who has tried out the process. I understand from
>Alan (Fry, my co-author) that he remains equally interested in seeing this
>tutorial (and the processes described) refreshed and updated. I don't have a
>problem with other folks improving a first edition and making it something
>better.
>
>Just in case anyone is interested (MacPerl stalwarts might be) I had to
>abandon my rusty PowerMac 6100/60 back at the end of '99. I gave it to my
>Dad - he is still happy with it. The overriding factor was MacOS support for
>Java (lack thereof), and the fact that the best Linux distros are on Intel.
>No value judgment - that's just how it is.
>
>In any case I have been following the progress of MacPerl, and it's not
>impossible that I might get another Mac some day. I also recognize that
>there is going to be a large non-MacOS X community out there for a while,
>and so our XS/SWIG efforts make sense. I've been looking at running gcc on
>Intel Linux (Mandrake) as a PPC cross-compiler, and if I make that work with
>Perl XS I'll furnish the modules list with the details. My Dad's 6100 still
>has MacPerl on it for testing. Little does he know... :-)
>
>Regards,
>Arved Sandstrom
>
>Fairly Senior Software Type
>e-plicity (http://www.e-plicity.com)
>Wireless * B2B * J2EE * XML --- Halifax, Nova Scotia
Hi Arved,
nice to meet you on the list. First of all, I'd like to thank you and
Alan for the tutorial.
Yes indeed, I have some suggestions for improvement. But I can only
speak about and offer my help for the MPW part, as I don't own
CodeWarrior.
While the described MPW build process for the PPC architecture is
straightforward, the build process for CFM68K is not complete. I had
a hard time to figure that out. I tried everything before I finally
used MPW's createmake tool just to see the build steps for a (dummy)
shared lib (should have done this first :). It turned out, that the
MakeFlat tool is needed for generating a CFM68K shared lib.
Createmake is also an invaluable tool to find out all the needed MPW
libraries for a particular program type and a particular target (68K
or PPC). In case the linker complains, one should definitely use this
tool first (as one would normally do under MPW to create a makefile).
I will be pleased to send you and Alan a copy of the worksheets I've
used to build the Date::Calc module, just email me.
Just another detail: Takeshi reports to me, that the enclosure of the
standard XS includes with #import pragmas is also needed for the
CFM68K build with CW, although not mentioned in the tutorial. This
should be fixed.
The following is a more general annotation (and you may disagree).
The first time I read the tutorial, I got quite a bit confused
because of its organization as multi-track tutorial. Although the
table of contents in the HTML version and the bookmarks in the PDF
version make the overall structure of the document clear, one can get
lost while reading. IMHO, to make reading a bit easier, all document
formats should contain a TOC, may be a brief "What you should read,
if ..." introduction and definitely some kind of numbering for the
sections/chapters (e.g. 2. Building, 2.1 MPW, 2.1.1 PPC, 2.1.2
CFM68K, ... , 2.2 CW for MPW etc. -- you got the idea). This may be
unusual for pod like documentation, but will help to figure out what
one will need to read for a particular IDE and whether or not a
section belongs to MPW or CW for MPW, for example.
With the MacPerl 5.6.0 (alpha) release on the horizon (the next days?
:), we will see if there are any things that need to be changed or
added.
Best regards,
--Thomas
