blog.rastageeks.org

Mingw32-ocaml 3.12.0

Toots — 2010-08-11T23:02:54Z

An updated version of the ocaml cross-compiler package, based on ocaml 3.12.0, has just been uploaded to Debian experimental !

Any report and test on the package would be very welcome ! I have personally tested it with Liquidsoap and built a win32 version of the software.

Since this build implies many external modules as well as C objects, I am pretty confident in the cross-compiler uploaded to experimental..

About the cross-compiler: the ocaml cross-compiler is the result of the hard work done by Richard Jones for Fedora. The Debian package is merely a backport (and adaptation to ocaml 3.12.0) of his patches.

If you care about the future of the cross-compiler, the best you can do is work with upstream to find how to push the needed changes there in order to have a plain support for it.

I have personally no time for starting this process but I could try to describe the patches to an intereste contributor. Warning: some are REALLY hacky :-)

Pkg-mediawiki..

Toots — 2010-08-04T05:11:04Z

..recently got two new contributors, Jonathan Wiltshire and Thorsten Glaser. I forgot to blog about this but I am very happy to see the mediawiki packages getting more love, considering that I have much less time for them these days... Good work guys! - Debian / debian

Gotcha!

Toots — 2010-08-04T05:08:29Z

Thanks Daniel, I just got the world's most powerful wireless network card. It works and connects great including with aircrack-ng and co.. ! - Other / debian

SPIP 2.1.1

Toots — 2010-08-04T05:05:20Z

...was just released and uploaded to Debian unstable!

What's this thing with CDBS ?

Toots — 2010-07-16T01:14:27Z

What's this thing with CDBS that makes people so angry at it ? I can understand that one may not like that it is a bunch of makefiles, but, hell, the whole makefile system is obscured all the way, so I guess those people NEVER write (complex) makefile.. :-) More seriously, I have used CDBS for years, I've always been very happy with it. I understand that some people prefer other solutions, but it does not mean that there should be a war between this or that. Those are simply personal (...) - Debian / debian

I have a dream...

Toots — 2010-06-21T21:22:49Z

I have a dream that one day, serious programming language theoriticians, which would gather and realize that LaTeX has done a great job but is basically just a pile of rewriting rules built on top of postscript.

I have a dream that one day, one would get the fundings and rewrite from scratch a new language.

A language with a clear syntax for describing the beautification constraints.

A language which would also be flexible enough to be able to override those constraints.

A language that would allow to write mathematic formula, macros and other tools without arcane tricks and hacks to obtain the required rending....

And much more...

Private records in OCaml

Toots — 2010-06-15T00:23:43Z

In Private type abbreviations, what are they good for? [1] and then in Another use for private type abbreviations [2], yminsky wrote about the use of private type in OCaml.

Among the various proposed examples, the idea of read-only value was mentioned in the second post. I may have not followed the whole discussion after this, but I came on to an example in ocaml-ao today.

In ao, a driver is handled with an int, its id. It also has several read-only values, name, short_name etc..

Using a private record, it is possible to create a driver type this way:

(** Driver type (private). *)

type driver_t = private
 { id : int ;
 kind : driver_kind_t ;
 short_name : string ;
 name : string ;
 comment : string ;
 author : string ;
 priority : int ;
 preferred_byte_format : byte_format_t ;
 options : string list
 }

That way, one can access directly the fields of the record without being able to write a fresh one. In our case for instance, we then make sure that the id field, used when opening a device, is always a valid entry.

Another suggested use was, for bindings, when you have an extra internal field, like a state represented by a C void pointer. In this case, you may declare an object with n+1 element in the C function an only export the n first one as a private record type.. Its a bit hacky but it may be useful as well...

[1] http://ocaml.janestreet.com/?q=node/59

[2] http://ocaml.janestreet.com/?q=node/77

Ubuntu, the firm and its employees

Toots — 2010-05-10T14:23:27Z

This post is not meant to be offensive in any way. I would just like to write down things that came to my mind recently.

It all started when I was considering applying for the right to upload the package I maintain into Ubuntu. Looking at the procedure, I realized that this needs to be present during an IRC meeting at a given date online.

This stopped me immediately. I am working most of my day-time and, given the time zone I am living now, this was not an option. But, since I had registered to the corresponding mailing list, I started receiving mails of other applicants that where trying to arrange things with their work and private life to be able to participate.

Now, today, I stumbled upon these notes of Mark's presentation in Bruxelles, relayed by a friend that is not either working for Ubuntu. Reading it gave me a strong taste of management-oriented presentation, with all this sort of "yeah we want our product in every box next year" propaganda. Not like Steve Ballmer, fortunately, but not far perhaps.

So, yeah, there is something that makes me uncomfortable with Ubuntu. I am really happy by its success and I will continue to recommend it to friends around me.

However, I wonder if, in a way, Ubuntu is not a model of commercial company where a minimal core of developers are actually payed, while a second layer of developers are fan-boys that are willing to participate as if there were employees but without being actually payed, and a third layer being the open-source developers whose work is actually what makes 90% of the core of the OS.

A very good illustration is at the end of the note from Mark's presentation. It reads:

Somebody asks about advertising Ubuntu, looks like there are no plans for the moment to actually advertise Ubuntu across traditional media. Mark uses the Ubuntu Manual as an example of how Ubuntu gets advertised and will reach the mainstream, Mark points out myself and the room applauds the Ubuntu Manual Project! Woohoo!

Now, guess what:

About Us

We are a group of individuals trying to promote the use of Ubuntu and its variants. This is a private web site that is not connected in any official or financial way with Ubuntu, Canonical PL or Ubuntu.com. Official Ubuntu guides and downloads are freely available at www.ubuntu.com. Ubuntu is a registered trademark of Canonical PL

Source: http://ubuntumanual.org/about-us

SPIP is cool

Toots — 2010-05-02T00:05:16Z

I have been playing around with SPIP for some time today. I am really happy with the software and its current packaging ! I have packaged this application because I believed it was missing among the possible powerful CMS for Debian. I hope this will be a good package for squeeze ! - Debian / debian

[Security] Mediawiki 1.15.3

Toots — 2010-04-07T14:36:56Z

The Wikimedia fundation has just released a new security update for mediawiki.

Unfortunately, I will have no time to prepare updated packages before next week.

Hence, any interested contributor is welcome to propose/upload a fixed package.

Additionally, there is a patch available. You may use it to update your installation while the package is being prepared..