Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!peregrine!elroy!ames!ncar!oddjob!uxc!uxc.cso.uiuc.edu!urbsdc!aglew
From: aglew@urbsdc.Urbana.Gould.COM
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: using (ugh!  yetch!) assembler
Message-ID: <28200186@urbsdc>
Date: 9 Aug 88 13:50:00 GMT
References: <2926@utastro.UUCP>
Lines: 41
Nf-ID: #R:utastro.UUCP:2926:urbsdc:28200186:000:1996
Nf-From: urbsdc.Urbana.Gould.COM!aglew    Aug  9 08:50:00 1988


..> suitti@haddock.isc.com, on extensibility of C via libraries
..> and problems with libraries in UNIX:
>
>                 There are several problems with libraries in the
>UNIX/C environment within the universe as we know it.  1) Local
>libraries tend not to get distributed (and worse, they tend not to get
>distributed with local code). 

This is a problem that I begin to get interested in. I call it the
"environment extract/insert" problem. IE. if I write code, a function
or a utility program, I want to be able to give it to you in one
package - including all of the library routines, etc. that my code
depends on. This is the "environment extract" problem: we need tools
to go and pick out the library routines and header files you will
need to get my code running, and package them up. It's made a bit more
interesting when some of the dependencies are on public domain stuff, 
and some on commercial stuff: you can package up the PD stuff, but not 
the stuff that requires a licence.

Conversely, when you receive a package that contains an environment,
extracted as above, you may already have a more up-to-date version of 
the environment. We need insert tools that will determine what parts
of the environment have already been installed, and do not need to be.
This is complicated by dependencies on old version functionality, as 
well as the fact that revisions in libraries do not always preserve
filenames.

What tools exist to do this? In conventional C environments? 
In more sophisticated environments?



Andy "Krazy" Glew. Gould CSD-Urbana.    1101 E. University, Urbana, IL 61801   
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