[clean-list] Clean on Unix

[Martin Wierich]

Brian Rogoff wrote:
> 
> Hi,
>     I had a discussion with my manager this morning about using Clean
> in some projects (I'm fortunate enough to work for a manager who knows a
> lot about FP :), and during that conversation the big sticking point was
> the fact that Unix is a second class citizen in the Clean world. Is there
> any hope that things will get better? After scanning some of the mail from
> last year I get the impression that the answer is "no", that Unixes are
> strictly a sideshow and Clean is mostly Windows/Mac oriented.

Your impression is quite right. Our policy is that Windows and MacOS are our
"main" platforms and the Unixes are not, (although we have by far more Unix
users than MacOS users). As you might know this means, that you have less
libraries (ObjectIO) and tools (profilers, optimizing linkers, CleanIDE) for
the Unixes and you will have to wait longer for new releases. This situation
is not going to change. The differences will become even bigger: With 
Clean 2.0 there will be no dynamic linking for Unix, but there will be
dynamic linking for our two main platforms.

> 
>     IMO this situation is unfortunate, since Unixes appear to dominate the
> scientific and engineering software markets, which, while small, are more
> likely to appreciate the benefits of a language like Clean.

I agree. If you ask us for reasons then you will hear that it's more work to
support Unix as much as the main platforms.

cheers
  Martin Wierich
  Clean group