Bob, I think you may be getting hung up on the face-value meaning of
the word 'standalone'. As Jacque pointed out, there really is no such
thing in the world of modern personal computers. Maybe it would be
helpful to consider a rev-made 'standalone' as simply a stack that
does not require the IDE or a separate stackrunner app in order run.
2) A program which depends on "constant" libraries in the runtime
OS only.
To these 2 types of program we need to add non-standalones:
3) A program which makes use of "variable" libraries in the runtime
OS.
Only time will tell whether Rev standalones really belong in one
category or another by this empirical method.
Which category a Rev standalone belongs in is a question of what it's
been designed to do.
What libraries are needed depends entirely on what the stack does.
This is not an exclusively Linux issue, and not a Rev issue, either.
Many things that people do with Rev (and other development tools)
depend on the presence of quicktime, for instance. While quicktime
comes as standard on macs, it does not on windows machines. There
have been many discussions on this list of how best to deal with that.
There have also been many discussions on this list about the fact
that many ISP/Hosting services fail to run Rev CGIs because they
haven't installed a particular library.
So I'd imagine that an app that simply displays some text would work
reliably on many different Linux distros, and so would fall into your
desired definition of a standalone, but other, more complex apps
might not, and so would fall into your undesired category.
None of this is peculiar to Revolution, it's simply due to the fact
that different distros of Linux exist, which have different 'libraries'.
In the terms you have defined, mac and windows tend to have more
'constant' libraries than Linux, whereas Linux tends to have more
'variable' libraries than mac or windows. This makes life a bit
harder for Linux developers, whichever language they use.
Best,
Mark
On 10 Jun 2006, at 00:27, Bob Warren wrote:
Some people might think I am flogging a dead horse. In my opinion,
the horse is still very much alive, and this fact has enormous
consequences for Rev Linux users, not only in theoretical terms but
also in terms of practices.
According to what has been discussed under the thread "Linux
Installation", the answer to the question "When is a standalone not
a standalone?" is "When it is a Rev application".
I have had all kinds of explanations about the history of the term,
reminders of my lack of knowledge about what really happens
internally in an OS, etc. However, I find myself in a position
where the whole business is still as clear as mud, and I don't know
what to do in terms of the distribution of my Rev applications for
Linux.
Let me try introducing a new concept. The terms "constant" and
"variable" are familiar to us all, but have you ever thought of
applying such terms to libraries? According to this idea:
a) "Constant" libraries are contained within an OS (in the case of
Linux, probably within the kernel). They are responsible, for
example, for the everyday I-O of reading/writing to the file
system, and so on.
In the case of Linux, such constant libraries are common to all
distros.
b) "Variable" libraries within an OS are the ones that can change
from time to time, or can be different between one distribution and
another.
When I tried to define "standalones" previously, I said more or
less what I am going to say now, but without the new terminology.
Modified with the terminology, we now have the following
hypothetical definitions:
"Standalone", used to mean what it says rather than in relation to
its historical X-Talk significance, means:
EITHER:
1) A program which in no way refers to any type of library within
the runtime OS
OR:
2) A program which depends on "constant" libraries in the runtime
OS only.
To these 2 types of program we need to add non-standalones:
3) A program which makes use of "variable" libraries in the runtime
OS.
I had hoped that Rev "standalones" belonged to category 2, not
therefore requiring any kind of "installation" in the normal (e.g.
Windows) sense of the term. People tell me theoretically that they
belong to category 3 and that they therefore do require a full-
blown installation.
Since I am not essentially a religious kind of person, I try very
hard to believe what people tell me, but unfortunately I need to
see things with my own eyes in practice in order to be 100%
convinced. So far, nobody has told me of a Rev standalone that
cannot be transferred successfully to other distros of Linux (of
course, leaving aside the question of different references it might
make to the different characteristics of the particular file
system). Only time will tell whether Rev standalones really belong
in one category or another by this empirical method.
Of course, one person who should know about this better than any
other is Mark Waddingham, Rev's chief technical officer. Now, an
amusing picture conjures itself up in my imagination. There's Kevin
with a whip in his hand and there's Mark with beads of sweat on his
brow doing his daily debugging. And Mark gingerly raises his right
hand and mutters, "Can I go for a wee wee-wee?". And the stern
reply is "Later!". So I won't send any e-mails to Mark, but it
would be nice (if ever he gets time to read the UR-List) if he
could give us a position as to what the status of the Rev
"standalones" (especially in Linux) is supposed to be.
Or perhaps somebody could jump on him at RevCon? How about you,
Richard? It's your thread (I didn't steal it - just borrowed it
for a while)!!
Bob
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