R devel - Nov 1997 - R-alpha: Re: Separation of Program & Doc; REQUIRING Perl5 [was: New Version]

[[Again I diverge to R-devel, I think we need more opinions here...]]
>>>>> "KH" == Kurt Hornik
<hornik@ci.tuwien.ac.at> writes:
>>>>> Ross Ihaka writes:
    >> I am beginning to get a bit more free time and I would like to get
a
    >> "stable" version out as soon as possible.  (This is of
course so I can
    >> break absolutely everything without feeling too much pressure to
get
    >> things working again quickly :-).

    >> Using perl has produced some build problems because version 5 is
not
    >> a universal standard.  There is even no guarantee that any kind of
    >> perl would be available.

    >> It would be nice if the installation could happen without perl.  I
    >> think this is possible if we separate the building of help files
from
    >> the compilation/installation of binaries.  Preconfigured help files
    >> could then be distributed separately for anyone who lacks (the
correct
    >> version of) perl, or at the cost of a little bloat, be part of the
    >> distribution.
I agree [see below]

    >> Alternatively we could just say "YOU MUST HAVE PERL VERSION
5" and
    >> enforce this with configuration checks.  This is rather
user-hostile,
    >> but it does make things simple for us.

    >> Watcha think?

    KH> Well, better late than never (I was on a business trip for the past
few
    KH> days), let me say that I am very unhappy about splitting INSTALL into
a
    KH> doc and a non-doc part.  Let me explain why.

    KH> From a pedagogical point of view, it creates the impression that one
can
    KH> actually `install' a package without the documentation.  This is
not
    KH> true, because the documentation is an integral part of the package. 
We
    KH> need to force packages writers/maintainers into providing accurate
and
    KH> comprehensive documentation, and we need users to use it ...

Yes, [of course] I very much agree.  You may (not) know that I got involved
in R hacking first with the aim of improving documentation considerably
and pushing the idea that we need interesting / relevant examples as 
a very important part of docu.

    KH> From the R Core group's perspective, (I think) it does not solve
the
    KH> problem.  The problem is that although we would all be very happy to
    KH> have Perl, and in fact version 5, available on all systems (and NOTE
    KH> that we chose Perl because unlike the shell it is also available on
    KH> non-Unix platforms, dubious as these may be), this does not seem to
be
    KH> that case.  We now have Perl show up in both the documentation setup
    KH> process as well as in at least one user-level function, with perhaps
    KH> more to come.

hmm, I think that I said before that I don't like this (R function calling
perl) so much. 
It is nice that for non-Unix platforms, Perl is more available than a shell
(with sed, awk, ....).
However, Perl is not (yet ?) part of standard Unix [unfortunately].
Using perl from R functions  URGES users to have perl available.
This would prohibit the use of R for MANY who don't have a good access to
their system administrators [[which is not so rare, even at Universities..]].

The ``idea'' I got (which seems to be close to Ross' one) was:

A. For a Unix user, if she has perl available, she only needs the 
   base tar file, does ./configure  and
   make (good idea to INCLUDE 'make help' by default !) --> and has
all

B. Unix users without Perl, or  Windows / Mac  users:
   
   Besides the base tar/zip file, 
   they need to get the precompiled online help --- as distributed by CRAN,
   in addition, and then can use (but not enhance conveniently) the help.

 We could well setup things such that these users are really REQUIRED to
 get the precompiled help  (following the above point that the doc is
			    integral part of the software).

    KH> Ross, as far as I understand your intentions, you want both `make
    KH> install' and `R INSTALL pkg lib' to work even if Perl 5 is
not there.
    KH> The current solution (having install and INSTALL only operate things
    KH> which do not depend on the availability of Perl 5) is a fix, but of
    KH> course users could still do `make install-docs' and `R
INSTALL-DOC' on
    KH> the `unfortunate' platforms.  What would happen then?  Well, I
think
    KH> they should get a clean (and maybe not error-type) message saying
sorry,
    KH> you asked for something which requires Perl 5, which does not seem to
be
    KH> available on your system.  Now, the best possible way for this to be
    KH> accomplished would be via the configure script, which could not only
    KH> check for where Perl is, but also whether it is version 5 or not, and
    KH> record this information where needed.  (Maybe even in the R shell
    KH> script.)  E.g., if Perl 5 was found, we'd have

    KH> PERL5=y

    KH> in etc/INSTALL, and then code like

    KH> if [ "$PERL5" != "y" ];
    KH> then
    KH> echo "Sorry, you need ..."
    KH> exit 1
    KH> else
    KH> PROCEED.AS.USUAL()
    KH> fi

    KH> Functions based on Perl scripts could be treated in a unified manner
via
    KH> a function perl().  Calling

    KH> perl(script, arg1, arg2, ...)

    KH> would under Unix be the same as

    KH> system(paste("perl", arg1, arg2, ..., collapse = TRUE))

    KH> but be set up in a way that a graceful error message is returned if
Perl
    KH> was not available at compilation time.  In fact, we could even give
    KH> perl() a named version argument, or use perl() and perl5()?

    KH> (As an aside, my above reasoning also reflects my attitude that `make
    KH> install' should automatically install the documentation as well.)

Once more, I almost agree on that.

I think  `make' should install the program and doc
	(== current `make install docs')
 If perl is not available, installers should get your message above,
 PLUS the hint that 
	1) they must get the pre-compiled help from CRAN 
		and AFTER installing it,
	2) `make'  (or maybe, even `make install-program')
 will install the software alone [[docs being in place, unpacked from
				  precompiled CRAN help]].

    KH> Enough said.  Opinions?
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>B. Unix users without Perl, or  Windows / Mac  users:
 >  Besides the base tar/zip file,
 >  they need to get the precompiled online help --- as distributed by
CRAN,
 >  in addition, and then can use (but not enhance conveniently) the
help.

This does not seem unreasonable for Windows/Mac users since, if I
understand the situation correctly, they will also need a pre-compiled
version of some C and Fortran. For Unix users without Perl5 the
situation is not so obvious. (It might be easier to distribute Perl5
than precompiled versions of all possible Unix versions.)

Also, for users always connected to the Internet, it is not really clear
that they always need and should be forced to have the help on their own
machine. Effectively it is, or can be made, available on line. There are
advantages to this: the help can be updated and corrected on the fly.
(Assuming, of course, that it is not perfect to begin with.)

Paul Gilbert


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>>>>> "PaulG" == Paul Gilbert
<pgilbert@bank-banque-canada.ca> writes:
    >> B. Unix users without Perl, or  Windows / Mac  users:
    >> Besides the base tar/zip file,
    >> they need to get the precompiled online help --- as distributed by
    PaulG> CRAN,
    >> in addition, and then can use (but not enhance conveniently) the
    PaulG> help.

    PaulG> This does not seem unreasonable for Windows/Mac users since, if
    PaulG> I understand the situation correctly, they will also need a
    PaulG> pre-compiled version of some C and Fortran. For Unix users
    PaulG> without Perl5 the situation is not so obvious. (It might be
    PaulG> easier to distribute Perl5 than precompiled versions of all
    PaulG> possible Unix versions.)


    PaulG> Also, for users always connected to the Internet, it is not really
clear
    PaulG> that they always need and should be forced to have the help on
their own
    PaulG> machine. Effectively it is, or can be made, available on line.
There are
    PaulG> advantages to this: the help can be updated and corrected on the
fly.
    PaulG> (Assuming, of course, that it is not perfect to begin with.)

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Regarding Perl5 availability:
 - In the Unix world I would be surprised if people who would want to
   install R would not also have access to perl5 or be able to install
   it.  I would assert that the level of skill required to install R
   is comparable to that required to install perl.
 - For Mac or Windows are you expecting that most users would install
   from the .tar.gz file?  I would have thought that there would be
   one compilation done to create a .zip file for Windows and a .hqx
   file for the Mac.  The typical user would only need to install
   these "tar-ball" files and never need to see the part that depended
   on perl.  If someone decides to write an R function that calls perl 
   then it will croak but the same would happen for shell scripts, awk 
   scripts, ...
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