GNU Tentacles
Still trying to study some functional programming, I got Mac OS X binaries for GHC and OCaml a few weeks ago. They are both broken. The GHC one seems to require but not include a gmp package (GNU multi-precision numbers). The OCaml one requires a "libdl", which simulates on OS X the API for the common Unix dynamic linker/loader. (Note: simulates the API, but not quite the semantics.)
These are just two more examples of the problem I call "GNU Tentacles". The name came about when I was trying to get libg++ (or maybe it was TeX) working on very early Rhapsody. It went something like: the "make" required "automake". Then I had to go locate "autoconf". Now, autoconf requires its very own special versions of both awk and m4. It just went on and on. Tentacles reaching out to the net forever. Yecch.
These sorts of experiences made me leery of taking that first step (searching for gmp or for libdl), since I couldn't know how many more times I'd have to go out to the net and search for further dependencies.
I guess it's better now than it was in 1998, but it's still not ready for prime time. Turned out that both libdl and the gmp library are self-contained enough that I could just download and build each, without requiring further package downloads. Kewl! So both GHC and OCaml work here now (at least for tiny "Hello World" examples).
1:34:45 AM
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