Re: General chatter.

[Dr . Jürgen Sauermann]

    Hi Chris,
    
    some experience of mine that might help.
    
    1. Some time ago I tried really hard to compile GNU APL with the
    (standard?) Microsoft C++
    compiler so that GNU APL runs natively under Windows. I don't
    remember which compiler
    (there seems to be a few of them), but I got thousands of errors and
    warnings, most of them
    rather stupid and some of them really hard to fix while maintaining
    compatibility of the code
    with the gcc compiler.
    
    2. Regarding cygwin, it very much looks like you need it only to
    build GNU APL (since it has the
    necessary development tools (autoconf, m4, ...) to do so. Once you
    habe produced the GNU APL
    binary under cygwin you can link it with one or two of the libraries
    that come with cygwin. The
    result of that seems to run properly in the Windows cmd.exe (don't
    recall which Windows version
    I tried.
    
    3. Be warned: The standard C++ development environment in Windows is
    quite a mess and
    far more complicated than the standard GNU APL build system. Without
    autoconf/automake
    you will need to do many changes in Makefiles and header files so
    that they compile. And several
    GNU APL goodies (⎕FFT, ⎕PNG, ⎕XML) may not be available under
    Windows because the
    corresponding libraries are missing.
    
    4. I believe that NARS (https://www.nars2000.org) is a free
    interpreter that runs under Windows
    and is, like GNU APL, free (both are licensed under the GPLv3) .
    Most commercial APL vendors offer
    Windows based APL imterpreters which are free of charge for private
    use but not free because they
    come with limitations as to their use.
    
    Best Regards,
    Jürgen

On 3/29/24 18:47, Chris Moller wrote:

>       
>       First, due to my old ISP having apparently gone out
>         of business while keeping my mollerware.com domain locked, my
>         old moller@mollerware.com
>         address is at least temporarily dead.  I'm moller@nc.rr.com
>         for the moment.
>         
>         Second, is there a Windows version of APL
>         that runs without using Cygwin?  My son has need of it--he's
>         stuck in a benighted environment that refuses to acknowledge the
>         existence of Linux.
>         
>         Thanks,
>         Chris
>