drh@sun.Eng.Sun.COM (D. Ryan Hawley) (12/19/89)
Thank's for all the input regarding compilers, a few weeks ago! From all the responses it seemed clear that the Lattice Compiler would support my needs best (ie. they seem to have the more responsive 800 lines ;^V), and I've been using it longest (if you include the Lattice 1.0 on my Victor 9000) :^V Now, for my latest question. I spent 16 hours this weekend trying to get various programs to compile, reading the manuals (which are GREAT (2 of them with lots of info, plus manual updates, plus readmes)). Any help I can get regarding converting makefiles from MANX to Lattice would be much appreciated! I'm especially interested in getting ISPELL to work, without having to buy the MANX compiler. Has anyone who has had to do this already willing to help me out with sample makefiles, advice, etc? If you would send it directly to me, I will summarize, if people want. =drh=
gregg@cbnewsc.ATT.COM (gregg.g.wonderly) (12/22/89)
From article <129401@sun.Eng.Sun.COM>, by drh@sun.Eng.Sun.COM (D. Ryan Hawley): > Any help I can get regarding converting > makefiles from MANX to Lattice would be much appreciated! I was really impressed with the Lattice stuff when I got it. But after I had a chance to inspect things more closely I discovered that there were several things that were done "plain wrong". For instance, they include a program called grep, but whose arguments and default behavior (and for no apparent reason) are different from the UN*X grep. Either it is grep or it is not. If it is not a proper subset of grep, then it should not be called grep. LMK has many non-make like behaviors. One of the most rediculous is that if you list a dependency as file.c: file1.h file2.h file3.h It will ALWAYS compile file.o because file.c and file.h are always out of date. Normal make does not have this behavior, it checks starting out the highest level of generation and stops when it finds that the .o is newer than the dependents of file.c. Normally, I don't use this type of dependency, but sometimes file.c comes from something non-standard to makes builtin knowledge. I don't use LMK, I use a version of MAKE that I got off of the Lattice Bulletin board, it works much better (I believe that it was with a whole bunch of other UN*X tools that I use too). Another gripe I have with the Lattice stuff is sscanf(). I have had to recode two applications that used it because it just plain didn't work. Why Lattice can't buy the rights to proven libraries instead of giving us this broken stuff is beyond me! As I have said before, "Libraries limit bugs to very local areas, so why reinvent the code in them, when the code there is known to work?" The UN*X scanf/make/grep really do work, why can't we have them? You bet I am frustrated. I have been hit with too many brick walls while trying to port straight forward C programs. And all because of broken libraries and brain-damaged tools. -- ----- gregg.g.wonderly@att.com (AT&T bell laboratories)