Why is it compiling GMP so hard?

[Fausto Arinos Barbuto]

Hi Torbjörn,

    Thanks for your reply. I hope you are not a Unix/Linux zealot --
    there is fanatism enough in this world. ;-)  Having that said, I
    must add that I am not exactly a Windows fan -- but I must
    face the facts, W2000 is what I have on this desktop, thus I
    either get along with this OS or I'm going nowhere.

> You need to be able to read perhaps 30 lines of English text in
> order to install GMP.

    What I did.

> Many people can actually cope with such an intellectual
> undertaking.

    It takes a bit of intellectual undertaking to write a clear manual
    too, don't you agree? Let's face the facts once again -- this is not
    rocket science, it all boils down to convoluted/insufficient
    installation instructions. I have everything that the manual says
    I need to have GMP installed on this computer -- and still I am
    getting an error which I cannot resolve by simply reading the
    manual.

> We intentionally don't provide an installation icon to click,

    Windows is the OS of choice (or imposition) of around 90% of
    all desktops in the world, according to Wikipedia. What is the
    actual idea behind of not providing a Windows installer? Is it
    to "intentionally" prevent GMP from being more popular and
    used?

    In fact, I don't care much about an installer. A configure or a
    makefile file that works would suffice. I've successfully compiled
    Apfloat and GRX on Windows boxes in the past, and everything
    worked like a charm. Why can't GMP be the same?

> as people in need of that will often find themselves in great trouble
> when actually attempting to program for the library.

    Having troubles programming for GMP comes *after* having
    the library installed. I am sure that GMP is so complex and
    powerful that I will have to learn lots before being able to use
    it properly or even minimally. And, of course, at some point in
    this process I will have troubles, great or small, programming
    for GMP. That doesn't scare me, as I see this as a natural step
    in every learning process.

    Listen, I would like to give GMP a honest shot but, if I can't,
    it's fine. Life goes on. I will forget it and unsubscribe to this list.
    But suggesting that creating and using the lib is just for smart
    folks like you doesn't help much.

    Thanks anyway.

---Fausto




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