[mercury-users] DASD request

[Robert Shiplett]

I hope I am not the first non-academic user to ask merc-dev's that the
likely size of HD required be indicated at least to an order of mag

Having never spent so many hours and CPU cycles just to get a compiler
+ libraries to build for a language which I only propose to use (as
opposed to requested, suggested or required to use by a client or
manager), it was intensely frustrating to have what finally appeared
to be a succesful install run simply fail at 3 am  ( I awoke due to
the HD silence ) with a lack of space.

While many new machines have 2 250Gb drives, my old XP box has added
Firewire devices as needed: and with a new contract I will have more
space.

But just as I now live within 2 Gb of RAM for a single core i586,
something would have to go off an HD to make room for a full mercury
build.

I would propose adding advice for new users of mercury: plan to
install on a recentlly defragged internal drive with 3 Gb free.
Preferrrably run in parallel on multi-core CPU.  If you got 'em, smoke
em.

Or some such.

I would change the final build order of grade to do no-prof before
with prof for fast-asm.  Just a user suggestion: someone such as
myself with a Prolog background is going to want a useable install
against which to do some checks against the results m.org and
MissionCriticalIT indicate.  What I had at 3am after several attempts
is not yet that.

Years of a low rate of user adoption could lead to neglect of
user-adoption impediments: but for my interest, I would have abandoned
the effort.  Not providing optional binaries is one such ( I spent
years in Smalltalk on large corp (F100, F200) mission critical apps -
yet as a dev community we mastered the clean shot thru the foot.)

Even on the 16 Gb SSD chip for this linux netbook (as the XP CPU is
occupied with Mercury mgnuc), there are no longer 3 Gb to be freed and
a 32Gb chip must await a contract.

These are just the facts of my life as a user: I report them in the
hope that input from the environment is what is critical to
evolutionary change ;-)

No unpleasant or sarcastic tone is intended.  I am told that
tolerating my manner of expressing myself is a question of an acquired
taste.  Having come to enjoy steamed spinach - but not stewed pears -
I can imagine this ...

If instead the build were controlled by a near-logic language such as
ICON (oh never mind - at my age I won't live to see configure/make go
extinct ).  What fails, fails. Why backtrack to "finish" a build with
some optimal outcome?

Or: why is mercury not yet building mercury?

Best regards
an exasperated new user
PS:  and Smalltalk begat Ruby (yet Self-inlining begat Google V8.
Hmmm.  Why am I not more easily amused?)
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