ports/126890: port update: lang/cmucl

[Alex Goncharov]

,--- Martin Cracauer (Tue, 16 Dec 2008 16:00:04 GMT) ----*
| The 6.3 build will work on the newer OSes, too, but it would be better
|  to pick more selectively.
`--------------------------------------------------------*

Not out of the box -- compatibility libraries would be required.

,--- Stefan Walter (Tue, 16 Dec 2008 15:10:08 GMT) ----*
| I assume that the 6.3 version will work on 6.4 as well, and the 7.0
| version will work on 7.1 etc. If that's the case, check ${OSVERSION} and
| set DISTNAME accordingly. Untested example:
`------------------------------------------------------*

The assumption is reasonable but there is no guarantee.

,--- Fulvio Ciriaco (Tue, 16 Dec 2008 18:30:05 GMT) ----*
| I have been using cmucl-freebsd-7.0 on freebsd7.0 and 7.1 without
| any problem.
|  However I have no 6.x or 8.0 platform to test.
|  My prudential logic is:
|  if (OS>=7.0) then install cmucl-19e-
|               else install cmucl-19c-
|  I think who sticks with FreeBSD-6.x prefers cmucl with a longer testing
|  history. Those having 7.x prefer to keep uptodate, moreover this case
|  was tested at least by me.
`-------------------------------------------------------*

19e is good on FreeBSD-6.x -- at least on whatever "x" it was build,
as reflected in the distribution's name. There is no point in sticking
with 19c -- if you hit a problem there, there will be hardly any rush
to fix it until the problem is reproduced in the newest distribution.

Now, about the "newest".  Even 19e is old by certain metric: it was
released on May 4 2008, and since then lots of progress has been made,
which is reflected in monthly snapshots, the latest being 2008-12,
released on Dec 10.

The way CMUCL progresses, if one wants the best CMUCL available, the
latest snapshot should be the best choice.

I am saying this with a certain degree of confidence, as a the person
who builds FreeBSD CMUCL distributions available at common-lisp.net.

As such, I also know that:

  * I am not planning to build on FreeBSD 6 anymore -- the last build
    for FreeBSD 6.3 was 2008-11.

  * I may or may not keep up with the FreeBSD 8 -- there is no 2008-12
    distribution for it, as I was not able to rebuild the OS itself
    (although I'll be trying every month).

  * The moment RELENG_7 switches to FreeBSD 7.1, the 7.x distributions
    will be tagged with 7.1: I want the distributions to be explicit
    about the platform they were built and tested on.  From that point
    on, I will not be able to claim "tested on 7.0".

So, the situation with CMUCLs is somewhat complicated, and personally
I would always prefer to go to http://common-lisp.net and pull the
latest suitable snapshot from there.  With this in mind, I had decided
to refrain from volunteering to maintain the FreeBSD `lang/cmucl'
port, even though I do maintain another one: essentially, if you want
CMUCL, go where it is, that is to the primary source.

You may want to keep this all in mind.

-- Alex -- alex-goncharov at comcast.net --

/*
 * If God wanted us to be brave, why did he give us legs?
 * 
 * -- Marvin Kitman
 */