World: r3wp

what will happen if I pull into the directory of earlier git synced 
stuff? Will it mess new things into old things, or will it delete 
earlier stuff and replace it wit new?

You can choose.

If you have local commits which are not in the remote repository, 
if you _pull_ Git will try to merge your local changes with the remote 
changes.

If you want to always choose the remote changes, do not pull but 
_fetch_ and _reset_ instead.

And rest assured that your desired workflow is perfectly achievable. 
I'll describe how later, gotta run again, unfortunately.

Pekr, there's no need to purge, but it is a good idea to do that. 
 There have been various changes, some of which will not merge properly.

Ok, so far we have:
1. change about.txt to README -- for consistency
2. change lib to use sub dirs per platform

3. move gcc makefile to top dir (and ignore other makefiles for now)

Let me know if there are any other revisions before we move to the 
final directory.

changing my previous suggestion for 3.:
3. drop non make-gcc makefiles for now
4. move the gcc makefiles to sub dirs per platform

additionally i'd suggest the following revisions:
5. remove reb-to.h, pass TO_<target> as compiler flag
6. fix bug#1658: link linux binaries against libdl

suggestion #5 allows to build for different targets from exactly 
the same sources. so we can easily bundle multiple makefiles for 
different targets, which simply pass the appropriate TO_<target> 
flag.


an alternative would be to have target-specific include directories 
(such as src/include/3-1/), place the reb-to.h there and then have 
makefiles for different targets adjust their include paths accordingly.

i have commits for all the above suggestions locally. as they're 
only modifying generated files, i'm not sure they'll be of much use. 
if it helps in more clearly defining what i mean by the above, i'll 
happily push them somewhere public.

Andreas, it is easy to move the TO-* to the command line.   It was 
originally put in a file to try to keep the gcc line shorter (easier 
to see compiler warnings.)

On #6, I thought it was there now, but will check again.

There are more standard and automatic ways to detect target platforms, 
such as using the available __LINUX__ and __SYLLABLE__ defines

Hm, I think the wrong Git service was chosen. gitorious.org uses 
Guru meditation error messages:

Error 503 Service Unavailable

Service Unavailable
Guru Meditation:

XID: 328580510
Varnish cache server

Appropriate :)

Nice!

Kaj, __LINUX__ and such defines are not enough, due to the various 
incompatibilities between linux systems.

Also, it should be noted, that although most developers often use 
the most recent versions of their OS, most "normal users" do  not.


Or, said another way: I have friends who run businesses that just 
support very old operating systems for very large companies... e.g. 
ATT as an example.

So, it's nice if we can compiler to older versions.

=compile

True, but as far as I know, there's currently only one source configuration 
for Linux, and you can always supply manual hints for subversions 
when necessary. In any case, there are also ways to detect such subversions

Maybe I should say sub-types

It's better for the config to be higher level in the master build 
tables which are defined in REBOL.  Those tables define more than 
just GCC compile time symbols, but also code/data within the boot 
scripts used by the interpreter.

That is, top down.

Well, there are detections available at that level, as well, such 
as the uname command on Unixy systems

This is the old debate of table-based configuration systems versus 
detection-based configuration systems. I understand that tables are 
less work at first, and so that's what everyone did in the old days, 
but exactly because environments are so complex these days, most 
people have moved to automatic detection

In my experience of porting software to more or less deviating platforms, 
table-driven systems are harder to work with than ones with proper 
detections

The goal of the current R3 build automation method is to save my 
time.


Currently, the platform table is only ~10 lines of REBOL, so it is 
difficult to beat using any other method.  And, even with the detection 
approach you mention, you need still tables.


However, that being said, if you want to create and test such a detection-based 
method and confirm it works over a range of OSes I would be happy 
to use it!  It must handle Linux, Syllable, BSD, OS X, Solaris, Windows, 
AmigaOS, Haiku, QNX, and various others, and also work for systems 
ten years old or more.

I'm open to any idea like this... as long as it saves *me* time.

I can't test it myself on most of those systems, but I'll keep the 
idea in mind when digging further into the host kit. There are a 
few well known configuration systems that are much too bloated to 
use, but that are good sources to collect the tests needed on systems 
that I don't have

It's currently not a big deal, but it would be nice to eliminate 
the manual configuration requirement

Right now, the manual configuration doesn't take much time, because 
we're building only /core and /libr3... and for posix model.  Once 
more features are added, like graphics and sound, or specific OS 
support (e.g. like what Solie is doing) then we'll need to revisit 
it.

BTW, here is an example of the entire config used for 4.2 (Linux):
	[0.4.2 "linux"   posix    [LDL] [CO1 F64 HID NPS] [ST1]]

LibDL... what do the others mean?

-O1, 64 bit files, vis=hidden, no-ptr-sign, strip result

I've started to use git, I downloaded the A110 yesterday... yay!

(user moliad on github)