Linux, hooje fragging FTPing, and Modula-3
David Priest
guy, who'd like to play with Modula-3 a bit, 'cause it seems like the
logical next step up from Modula-2, which I've _really_ enjoyed playing with.
But being that I don't value my computer more than food and outdoor
recreation, I don't devote a lot of money to this hobby. It's a lowly
483DX33 with a measly 5Mb ram and about 50Mb free disk space. And no CD ROM.
Is it even plausible for me to play with M3? I don't want fancy
graphics, debuggers, or other shit. I want to type up my modules, fire
'em through a compiler, and have executables that are happy to run in a
plaintext terminal. I also don't want to spend the next three days
FTPing a ton of software, just so I can toy around.
So, lemme know: (a) can I do this, (b) how many Mb gzip'd & tar'd is this
gonna take, and (c) where do I grab it?
Thanks!
(And, hey, if you happen to know, what would it take for me to use
Eiffel? Sather? Java? Modula-2?)
Dan Connolly
>
> K, here's the situation: I'm a mediocre at-home casual hacker type of
> guy, who'd like to play with Modula-3 a bit, 'cause it seems like the
> logical next step up from Modula-2, which I've _really_ enjoyed playing with.
I was in a position similar to yours. As an experiment, I downloaded
the entier M3 distribution, 6MB, over a ppp connection (via TERM,
no less!).
It worked like a champ -- visual oblique and all.
> But being that I don't value my computer more than food and outdoor
> recreation, I don't devote a lot of money to this hobby. It's a lowly
> 483DX33 with a measly 5Mb ram and about 50Mb free disk space. And no CD ROM.
Ummm bad news: 50Mb might cut it (get the stripped binaries), but
5Mb RAM won't. You'll need at least 16mb. Hmmm... maybe if you
don't want to run X you can get by with 8. But 4? I doubt it.
By the way: I was running linux, and I'm assuming you are too.
The current version for linux seems to be at:
http://www.vlsi.polymtl.ca/m3/binaries/LINUXELF/3.5.4-B/
though I haven't tried that one out.
Dan
--
Daniel W. Connolly "We believe in the interconnectedness of all things"
Research Scientist, MIT/W3C PGP: EDF8 A8E4 F3BB 0F3C FD1B 7BE0 716C FF21
<conn...@w3.org> http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/People/Connolly/
Christopher Jeris
Linux-box with only four megabytes of RAM. Yeah, she swaps a lot, but
for small projects and especially with the new integrated backend (thank
you to the author of this too -- I forget your name) it's quite tolerable.
Your mileage may vary -- I'm running a fairly stripped-down 1.2.13 ELF
kernel and my swap partition is on a separate physical disk from my Linux
partition; I don't know how much that affects performance. But you really
can run SRC M3 with only 4MB RAM. Go for it.
(I had to draw the line at Standard ML of New Jersey though -- it started
swapping halfway through loading its 6.7MB initial heap image. *grin*)
Christopher Jeris c-j...@uchicago.edu University of Chicago Math!
David Priest
Someone else mentioned that 50Mb would be enough drive space; that I
think I can squeeze. And you're saying 5Mb ram will do the trick...
Which only leaves me wondering exactly what parts of Modula-3 I need. :)
John Kominek
You have three options at your disposal:
1. A heavyweight, stat-of-the-art m3 compiler from SRC (Unix,Win32)
2. A mediumweight, partial port to OS/2
3. A lightweight, partial port to DOS
[Beware that 'lightweight' to a modula-3-er is still hefty --
40MB disk space altogether counting the included gcc C compiler.]
Option 3. was designed for teaching undergraduate courses and is
what I recommend you try first. You can find it at:
http://www.ifi.uni-klu.ac.at/Modula-3/m3pc/m3pc.html
This is a European site, so pick an off-hours time to download.
Options 1. and 2. can be retrieved from
http://www.research.digital.com/SRC/modula-3/html/home.html
As this is the nerve center of the Modula-3 community, you will
find excellent information here. The documentation is extensive,
timely, and written by the people that created the language and
maintain its reference implementation.
One small warning. The modula-3 language and support system is
so extentive that it tends to overwhelm the beginner. After all,
it is meant for building large, robust systems. It is also meant
for experimental programming -- most of its user base (outside
of teaching) consists of university and industrial researchers.
But fear not! The Pascal subset of the language is easy to learn,
and the readers of this newsgroup are available to answer questions.
Have fun.
john
P.S. What languages do they teach CS undergrads at Simon Frasier?
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David Priest
>David,
>You have three options at your disposal:
> 1. A heavyweight, stat-of-the-art m3 compiler from SRC (Unix,Win32)
> 2. A mediumweight, partial port to OS/2
> 3. A lightweight, partial port to DOS
> [Beware that 'lightweight' to a modula-3-er is still hefty --
> 40MB disk space altogether counting the included gcc C compiler.]
>Option 3. was designed for teaching undergraduate courses and is
>what I recommend you try first. You can find it at:
But... <sniff> but... <sob> I was trying to get AWAY from DOS! ;-)
>so extentive that it tends to overwhelm the beginner. After all,
>it is meant for building large, robust systems. It is also meant
Heck, reading the docs is overwhelming. Still, it looked like fun.
>P.S. What languages do they teach CS undergrads at Simon Frasier?
Beats me.
I think I'll hold out for someone to put together a dummy-compatible
package. There's a lightweight Linux version out there, but it isn't
exactly clear to me what parts I need to grab. If the website
instructions were a bit more clear, it'd sure help. Alas, I've forgotten
the ssite address and can't look it up at the moment....
But someday it'll all come together.