dolfin team mailing list archive

[Anders Logg <logg@xxxxxxxxx>]

I think we can safely assume Python. We're already assuming a
recent C++ compiler. Not to mention the latest versions of FFC and
FIAT... :-)

/Anders

On Mon, Oct 24, 2005 at 05:33:06PM +0200, Johan Jansson wrote:
> On Mon, Oct 24, 2005 at 10:22:02AM -0500, Anders Logg wrote:
> > Great!
> > 
> > We should probably use libtool to build all libraries.
> > 
> > Or we could look at Matt's BuildSystem and rewrite the whole build
> > with that. (But we have plenty to do without breaking the build so I
> > suggest we wait for some time...)
> > 
> > /Anders
> > 
> 
> Yes, now PyDOLFIN has reached a stable state. It can be installed with
> "python setup.py install" just like any module, so now we should be
> able to depend on it from other scripts (like the demos).
> 
> I definitely think we should move to BuildSystem eventually. I've been
> fighting with autoconf a bit lately, and I started to question its
> design. But this is from the manual:
> 
>    "Naturally, you might then think of shell scripts; who needs
> autoconf? A set of properly written shell functions is enough to make
> it easy to write configure scripts by hand. Sigh!  Unfortunately,
> shell functions do not belong to the least common denominator;
> therefore, where you would like to define a function and use it ten
> times, you would instead need to copy its body ten times.
> 
>    So, what is really needed is some kind of compiler, autoconf, that
> takes an Autoconf program, `configure.ac', and transforms it into a
> portable shell script, configure."
> 
> If you can't even assume shell functions exist, then that's the
> explanation why autoconf looks the way it does. It's a great tool for
> extreme portability, but DOLFIN can probably safely restrict itself to
> the platforms which have a Python interpreter (for example), without
> leaving any interested users out.
> 
> But we can continue with autoconf for the time being, after fighting
> with it for some time at least you learn it pretty well..
> 
>   Johan
> 
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-- 
Anders Logg
Research Assistant Professor
Toyota Technological Institute at Chicago
http://www.tti-c.org/logg/