[Developers] ADMB, GCC, and the Windows build process

Mon Apr 22 17:19:33 PDT 2013

Thanks Arni for providing a way forward and as always, some careful
analysis.

I have both options (msys, and normal commandline) on multiple computers
option 1 worked fine following the instructions (and it also worked well
for one of my post-docs who succeeded quickly on his first ever try).  And
that was on windows 8 and windows 7.

As far as normal users, from my point of view the simplicity of Arni's IDE
would detract if it came in too many flavors (and I see getting the IDE out
as a high priority for a number of users up and down the hall here).

Cheers,
Jim

On Mon, Apr 22, 2013 at 5:07 PM, Arni Magnusson <arnima at hafro.is> wrote:

> Here are some thoughts about ADMB and GCC for Windows in the long term,
> not necessarily related to the ongoing release. Essentially, the core team
> needs to decide between two options:
>
> 1. To build ADMB with MinGW from scratch, the user only needs a GCC
> compiler, for example the c:/gnu/gcc472 that comes with ADMB-IDE. This is
> pretty much how things are now.
>
> 2. To build ADMB with MinGW from scratch, the user needs the MSYS Linux
> emulator, a system that provides a Bash shell and behaves like Linux. This
> is how things were at some point.
>
> As far as I can tell, the pros and cons of Option 1 (MSYS) are the
> following.
>
>
> Pros:
>
> We can then use the same makefile tree for Windows and Linux. This should
> result in a makefile tree that is easier to understand and maintain.
>
>
> Cons:
>
> MSYS intertwines the GCC compiler (170 MB) with lots of other stuff
> (another 170 for a total of 340 MB), like Perl and its own package manager.
> So it would probably not be a good idea to include the entire MSYS system
> inside the ADMB-IDE installer, right?
>
> So if we take Option 2, users who already have c:/gnu/gcc472 (created by
> ADMB-IDE) would need to install MSYS as well, just to build ADMB, even
> though they already have g++ on their machine. They would now have (at
> least) 2 installed C++ compilers, maybe 2 installed Perl interpreters, etc.
> Some potential for confusion and software conflicts.
>
> One option would be to offer ADMB-IDE-mini, which would include Emacs but
> not GCC, intended for users who have MSYS installed. With 64 bits and zips,
> this would mean a lot of confusing IDE distros.
>
> Another option would be to offer only ADMB-IDE-mini. Then ADMB-IDE would
> no longer be plug-and-play, but rather assume that GCC is already installed
> and configured. This would be a big step backwards for ADMB beginners who
> have little experience with compilers or modifying their PATH. It's hard to
> enough to get an introductory workshop up and running as it is.
>
>
> Conclusion:
>
> These are big pros and cons. Option 1 is nice for users (ADMB can be built
> with a minimal g++ compiler, no need for anything else), while Option 2 is
> nice for the core team (simpler makefiles).
>
> One possible solution would be to embrace MSYS and include it inside the
> ADMB-IDE installer, along with Perl, the MSYS package manager, and the
> kitchen sink. Disk space is cheap - and maybe it's safe to remove
> everything from c:/mingw/var/cache before building the ADMB-IDE installer?
>
> The current ADMB-IDE installer (admb-ide-101-win32.exe) is "only" 74 MB,
> so I'm by no means convinced that including MSYS inside it is the way to
> go. Maybe it's best to keep the installer minimal, and just let the
> fraction of users who want to build ADMB from scratch have both
> c:/gnu/gcc472 and c:/mingw on their computer. Or stay with Option 1 and
> just make small improvements to the current makefiles to provide Option 2
> as well.
>
>
> Let's continue to explore this, after the current version release is
> finished.
>
>
> Arni
>
>
>
> On Mon, 22 Apr 2013, Chris Grandin wrote:
>
>  Hi all,
>>
>> If you download MinGW and check off all the check boxes on the install
>> (include MSYS and developer tools), and include
>> c:\MinGW\bin;c:\MinGW\msys\1.**0\bin in your PATH, then you can just
>> open the MinGW shell and run the linux compile commands as written in the
>> README file to build the source.  This is how I did it from the start and
>> it worked great.  This method also avoids having to maintain
>> utilities/minGW parts of the project (MinGW parts of the README could just
>> say "Open a MinGW MSYS shell and follow linux commands").  No external
>> utilities that we need to keep track of are required when you do it this
>> way.
>>
>> I have reverted to revision 767, before all the changes happened because
>> minGW will not compile the source correctly now. It will compile and run
>> the samples but will not link to the contrib libaries properly.  Note there
>> are no tests for contrib linking so it appears A-OK on the testing machines.
>>
>> I'd be happy to write up this method up on the webpage if we can revert
>> to a working copy!
>>
>> Chris
>>
>>
>>
>> On Mon, 22 Apr 2013, Johnoel Ancheta wrote:
>>
>>  Hi Arni,
>>>
>>> We should press on and get this release out.  I'm going to need some
>>> help with documentation.
>>>
>>> Johnoel
>>>
>>
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-- 

James Ianelli
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7600 Sand Pt Way NE
Seattle WA 98115

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