On Fri, 11 Dec 2015, Ben Finney wrote:
Howdy David,
An update on how I'm tackling the packages in Debian:
* The ‘inform6unix’ releases don't appear to be archived anywhere
except on GitHub; the page you earlier designated at
<URL:http://ifarchive.org/if-archive/infocom/compilers/inform6/source/>
omits earlier releases when you post a new one. Perhaps that's by
design, but it means I don't know a reliable URL that will persist
over time for a particular release tarball.
Changing the way the IF Archive is organized probably isn't going to
happen.
For now, I'm using the releases you generate as archived at
<URL:https://github.com/DavidGriffith/inform6unix/releases/>, is
that reliable into the future?
That should be reliable for the forseeable future. I'm happy with Github.
* The Inform 7 developers, as best I can determine from their public
statements, assert control over the maintenance of the Inform 6
compiler and standard library. Importantly for Debian, that means
the maintenance schedules, version strings, and released tarballs
are all different from the ‘inform6unix’ code base.
These days I have sole control over the maintenence of the standard
Inform6 Library. I have some input with the compiler.
So there will be separate ‘inform6-compiler’ and ‘inform6-library’
source packages, getting source tarballs from (respectively) David
Kinder's ‘Inform6’ compiler repository, and your ‘inform6lib’
library. The version strings are derived from the releases from
those repositories.
If the confusion over authoritative releases and version strings can
be resolved by the Inform 7 developers, I might be able to make
better use of your extensive packaging work.
* The confusing use of the “Inform” name to denote two utterly
different authoring systems, distinguished merely by version number
but both still active, forces me to re-name the packages and
filenames to be clear these packages are specific to the Inform 6
system.
For these Debian packages, the compiler program file is
‘/usr/bin/inform6’ (and so its manual page is ‘inform6.1’), shared
resources go to ‘/usr/share/inform6/’, and so on.
I have mixed feelings on this. Inform6 can be installed as "inform"
simultanously with Inform7 without either stomping on the other. At the
very least, I'm going to shift the Inform6 Library to using a modern
three-number versioning scheme. So what I have now will be 6.12.0.
* The default in the compiler code (the ‘header.h’ file) for
‘Include_Directory’ is ‘"library"’, and that seems a sensible name
for the standard library.
So ‘/usr/share/inform6/library/’ (not ‘modules’) is the installed
location for the Inform 6 standard library files from
‘inform6-library’.
The way /usr/local/share/inform/ is organized is a mess. Modules aren't
supported anymore. I'm interested in any suggestions you may have for it.
I'm nearing completion of the packaging. As you requested, I'll wait
until you announce a “6.33.1” release before finalising this work.
May I take a look at your working code? I feel there may be stuff that I
can use in there, particularly something simpler to replace the
autoconf/automake system I have.
--
David Griffith
d...@661.org
A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
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