[ADMB Users] ADMB-IDE for Linux and Mac OS

[Arni Magnusson]

Good points, Tom.

I have indeed programmed the ADMB-IDE installer in Windows so that the 
installation will halt if it encounters an existing .emacs file, and ask 
the user whether to overwrite or keep the original. Any "installer" in 
Linux or Mac OS should also avoid overwriting an existing .emacs.

ADMB-IDE is designed for non-Emacs users. Regular Emacs users should just 
install and load the admb.el package like other Emacs packages (it is a 
conservative package that plays nicely with a regular user's settings). 
This important point is currently buried somewhere in the ADMB-IDE manual 
and in admb.el comments, but I should make this clear in a more obvious 
place.

Arni



On Fri, 18 Feb 2011, Tom Wainwright wrote:

> Arni,
>
> The standard way to install source packages in Linux (and other unixen, 
> including the MacOS shell) is the 'configure'-'make' combination, which 
> allows a user to do three steps:  unpack the archive, run 'configure' 
> (which checks dependencies, sets paths, etc.) from the package 
> directory, then (after installing any missing dependencies and iterating 
> a few times) run 'make'. However, 'configure' is a bit of a pain to get 
> working right for multiple OS versions, so a 'bash' install script might 
> be easier.  (Sorry, but I don't use ADMB enough these days to justify 
> the time to help with writing and testing this, hopefully, somebody else 
> on the list is knowlegeable in *nix programming.)
>
> One warning about your instructions:  Step 2 (copy .emacs file) could be 
> considered rude, as most Linux programmers already have their own 
> localized .emacs file, and would complain loudly if an installer 
> overwrites it.  Need to check if a .emacs file exists, and if so add the 
> ADMB-specific code to the end of it, with appropriate comments about 
> where the lines came from.  Also need to be sure that your code doesn't 
> change any standard emacs settings, to make sure it plays nicely with a 
> regular emacs user's keybindings, etc.
>
> Good luck!
>
> Tom Wainwright
>