From p.dalgaard@biostat.ku.dk  Tue Apr 21 13:56:37 1998
From: p.dalgaard@biostat.ku.dk (Peter Dalgaard BSA)
Date: 21 Apr 1998 14:56:37 +0200
Subject: R-0.61.1 compiled with egcs-mingw32
In-Reply-To: guido@sirio.stat.unipd.it's message of Tue, 21 Apr 1998 09:56:06 +0100 (GMT+0100)
References: <19980421085606.8796.qmail@sirio.stat.unipd.it>
Message-ID: <x27m4je3ju.fsf@blueberry.kubism.ku.dk>

guido@sirio.stat.unipd.it writes:

> 
>  Peter Dalgaard BSA writes:
>  > 
>  > Ouch! In that case, I suggest that we try to put some collective
>  > effort into getting something working with RSXNT. The only thing that
>  > bothers me a little is that RSXNT isn't quite GPL compatible (you have
>  > to pay a license for non-freeware usage) but I suppose that (a) it's a
>  > very mild restriction, and (b) it can hardly be worse than shipping
>  > GCC itself for RSXNT... There are certainly a lot of good things to be
>  > said for using GCC throughout.
>  > 
>  
>  1) More than one year ago, hence, maybe, things are changed, I download
>  RSXNT. However, I had problems to run its demo under MsWin3.1 (not under
>  Win95). So, I prefered to give up. Just a limited experience, however.
>  The other problem that I see is that, if I understand well,
>  RSXNT is the effort of just one pearson  not of a team.

Hmm. Things *have* changed. 1.4 came out in Dec97. However, I haven't
checked the win3.X demos, just read the docs. Sounds like I should,
eh? Was it compiling or running them that didn't work?

The RS in RSX is Rainer Schnittke, so you're right that it's
essentially a one-man job. So is EMX, on the other hand (Eberhard
Matthes). And GCC is GCC, obviously. The core of RSXNT really isn't
that big, and since it's only needed to help us over the Win32s
problem, I'd say try it - if it works, it works...

>  2) What about DOS? Do you think that we really need a GUI console under 
>  Microsoft-something? 

For teaching, yes, we need the GUI. Some of us, anyway. If we could
move to Tcl/Tk, we might get rid of the awful win32 API. That's
not a one-night project though.

Still, the ESS-mode people will want a stdio type interface, and it is
also useful for batch processing, so it should get done at some point.

> A couple of week ago, I took a look to the
>  R code thinking to recompile it with DJGPP. I didn't try but it seems
>  possible. The advantages that I can see are:
>   a) DJGPP is stable, mature and supported. 
>   b) I have limited experence but dynamic linking with DJGPP works
>      better than under Windows. For me, of course. And I am not a 
>      Windows programmers. But, I was able to to build dyn. libs
>      which call routines in the main executable (and we need this
>      non only for call_R but also for R_alloc and S_alloc).
>      With, just 3 #define's its possible to use the dlopen/dlsym/dlclose
>      interface.

As long as you stay away from graphics/dynload/system(), it's
certainly possible. (One of my former colleagues has done it a year or
so back.) With RSXNT as well - I'm pretty sure I tried that
at some point.

In principle, this isn't too hard with DLL's either, once the
generation of relocatable DLL's and import/export libraries is in
place. Luke Tierney has a set of dl* compatibility routines on

http://www.stat.umn.edu/~luke/xls/projects/dlbasics/dlbasics.html

>   c) Same user interface under MsWindows and Unix (character+readline).

- but no scrollback on the console. This will turn out to be a major
problem in practice, I suspect.

>   d) DJGPP has g77.

There's one somewhere for RSXNT, I believe.

>   e) From DOS to WinNt, only one executable.

And win3/95 ? DOS box or?

>   Comments? I have no time for a couple of weeks, but, after, if you
>   think that can be a worth tentative, I can make  the first
>   attempt (manage to recompile the non-graphic part +
>   write a first draft for the graphic device if the previous
>   point go well).

Hmm. If I have any influence to exert, I think that I'd like you to
try to reach a definitive verdict over the RSXNT/Win3.x issues first.
You seem to be the most skilled person around, when it comes to these
matters.

If I find some time, I might give it a stab myself. There's a SAS
course (yeah...) coming up next week though.

-- 
   O__  ---- Peter Dalgaard             Blegdamsvej 3  
  c/ /'_ --- Dept. of Biostatistics     2200 Cph. N   
 (*) \(*) -- University of Copenhagen   Denmark      Ph: (+45) 35327918
~~~~~~~~~~ - (p.dalgaard@biostat.ku.dk)             FAX: (+45) 35327907

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R-0.61.1 compiled with egcs-mingw32
Peter Dalgaard BSA