https://perl5.git.perl.org / metaconfig.git / blame
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| 959f3c4c JH |
1 | INTRO |
| 2 | ||
| 3 | This version of dist has been written by Raphael Manfredi based on | |
| 4 | previous work from Larry Wall and Harlan Stenn. | |
| 5 | ||
| 6 | HISTORY | |
| 7 | ||
| 8 | I started working on this in September 1990 while I was still a student | |
| 9 | at the Ecole des Mines de Saint-Etienne, France. From then on, I worked | |
| 10 | during two years at ISE (building the Eiffel 3.0 compiler -- the run-time | |
| 11 | part and code generation). Since I chose to use metaconfig for the run-time | |
| 12 | library, which is written in plain C, I had the chance to continue improving | |
| 13 | the whole dist package. | |
| 14 | ||
| 15 | By the end of 1991, I contacted Harlan Stenn <harlan@mumps.pfcs.com> who had | |
| 16 | been working separately on his own dist version. I started the painful merge. | |
| 17 | At the same time, I started releasing alpha version of dist 3.0. | |
| 18 | ||
| 19 | In 1992, I started a parallel project: mailagent. The dist 2.0 release upon | |
| 20 | which this work is based included a simple perl script called mailagent, whose | |
| 21 | sole job was to filter out @SH commands to automatically mail patches to some | |
| 22 | people. I liked the idea of having a perl mail filter and so I extended | |
| 23 | mailagent up to the point where it became really big and only marginally | |
| 24 | dist-related. I released it on the net (comp.sources.misc) on July 1992, after | |
| 25 | 7 months of hard work. | |
| 26 | ||
| 27 | In March 1993, I left ISE and returned to France to join ACRI. The dist 3.0 | |
| 28 | package was "almost" finished by that time, but the documentation was no | |
| 29 | longer accurate and needed a lot of work. My new job does not give me enough | |
| 30 | free time, so things have been longer than I expected. | |
| 31 | ||
| 32 | In July 1993, under the pressure of many of my alpha testers, I decided to | |
| 33 | go into the final process, sacrifying nights and week ends to finish up what | |
| 34 | turns out to have been a 3 years process... | |
| 35 | ||
| 36 | CREDITS | |
| 37 | ||
| 38 | My first thanks will go to Larry Wall <lwall@netlabs.com> who wrote perl | |
| 39 | and dist 2.0 in the first place. I would never have dived into dist 2.0 | |
| 40 | if it had not been written in perl. | |
| 41 | ||
| 42 | During my work, I had the chance to benefit some useful comments and | |
| 43 | contributions from Craig Kolb <craig@weedeater.math.yale.edu> who | |
| 44 | has been the very first user of metaconfig (with a rather pre-historic | |
| 45 | version). He used it on its rayshade 4.0 release (a ray tracing program). | |
| 46 | ||
| 47 | Then of course, many thanks are due to my co-worker, Harlan Stenn | |
| 48 | <harlan@mumps.pfcs.com>. Although I did the integration of his work all by | |
| 49 | myself, I have found many good ideas in his early work. For instance, he wrote | |
| 50 | the first implementation of the metalint program, something I could not live | |
| 51 | without today! His remarks, comments and encouragements have always been | |
| 52 | appreciated, even though we did not always agree on the same things at the | |
| 53 | same time... | |
| 54 | ||
| 55 | Then I would like to thank the many contributors to the metaconfig units. | |
| 56 | I hope I'm not forgetting anybody! Here they come, in alphabetical order: | |
| 57 | (sorted on the first name) | |
| 58 | ||
| 59 | Andy Dougherty <doughera@lafcol.lafayette.edu> | |
| 60 | Craig Kolb <craig@weedeater.math.yale.edu> | |
| 61 | Graham Stoney <greyham@research.canon.oz.au> | |
| 62 | Harlan Stenn <harlan@mumps.pfcs.com> | |
| 63 | Jan Djarv <Jan.Djarv@sa.erisoft.se> | |
| 64 | Larry Wall <lwall@netlabs.com> | |
| 65 | Ralf E. Stranzenbach <ralf@reswi.en.open.de> | |
| 66 | Scott Grosch <garath@engin.umich.edu> | |
| 67 | Syd Weinstein <syd@dsi.com> | |
| 68 | Thomas Neumann <tom@smart.bo.open.de> | |
| 69 | Wayne Davison <davison@borland.com> | |
| 70 | ||
| 71 | If I forgot your name, please let me know, and accept my apologies (not | |
| 72 | necessarily in that order ;-). | |
| 73 | ||
| 74 | Finally, thank you Shigeya Suzuki <shigeya@foretune.co.jp> for hosting the | |
| 75 | dist-users mailing list. Send mail to majordomo@foretune.co.jp to subscribe. | |
| 76 | ||
| 77 | Raphael Manfredi <ram@acri.fr> | |
| 78 | Lyon, France, August 1993 | |
| 79 | ||
| 80 | [This section added by subsequent patches] | |
| 81 | ||
| 82 | PATCHES | |
| 83 | ||
| 84 | I'm grateful to the following people for sending me patches and/or reporting | |
| 85 | bugs and giving me some suggestions (sorted on the first name): | |
| 86 | ||
| 87 | Andy Dougherty <andy@crystal.phys.lafayette.edu> | |
| 88 | Graham Stoney <greyham@research.canon.oz.au> | |
| 89 | Ilya Zakharevich <ilya@math.ohio-state.edu> | |
| 90 | Jarkko Hietaniemi <jhi@snakemail.hut.fi> | |
| 91 | Joseph H Buehler <jhpb@sarto.gaithersburg.md.us> | |
| 92 | Keith Walker <kew@timesink.spk.wa.us> | |
| 93 | Scott Presnell <srp@cgl.ucsf.edu> | |
| 94 | Wayne Davison <davison@borland.com> | |
| 95 | ||
| 96 | Due to a mistake of mine, changes from Wayne Davison were flagged 'WAD', | |
| 97 | but his middle initial being an 'E', new ones are now flagged as 'WED'. | |
| 98 | Sorry Wayne, I did not know. We don't use middle initials here in Europe. | |
| 99 | ||
| 100 | Special thanks to the perl5 Patch Pumpkin Holders (in chronological order): | |
| 101 | ||
| 102 | Andy Dougherty <andy@crystal.phys.lafayette.edu> | |
| 103 | Chip Salzenberg <chip@atlantic.net> | |
| 104 | ||
| 105 | for their wonderful creativity. Perl5 is by far the largest metaconfig | |
| 106 | customer with the widest audience, so Configure got run on a variety | |
| 107 | of new platforms requiring specific fixes... which they provided, | |
| 108 | thereby greatly enhancing the metaconfig "portability database". | |
| 109 | ||
| 110 | Raphael Manfredi <Raphael_Manfredi@grenoble.hp.com> | |
| 111 | Grenoble, France, February 1997 | |
| 112 |