[Haskell] hmake -- on Windows?

[Malcolm Wallace]

Graham Klyne <gk at ninebynine.org> writes:

> I just took a quick look at hmake, and it appears to be very 
> Unix/Linux-centred in its applicability.

Yes, in general it is.  hmake's origins are lost in the mists of
time, but certainly date from the very earliest days of Haskell
(1991-1992?), when the language developers used Solaris and PhD
students used Acorn RiscOS.  Although support for RiscOS was dropped
a long time ago, most users still seem to use Unix-alike machines.
Certainly, no Windows user has ever volunteered to port it natively
to their platform, although several (I believe) use it under Cygwin.

> In particular, the installation instructions seem to dpeend on a 
> 'configure' utility, which I think is a Unix/Linux feature that I'm not 
> aware is available for Windows.

'configure' is a shell-script included in the distribution,
not a separate utility.  But hmake certainly depends on having a
Bourne-compatible shell, both for installation and execution.

Having said all this, Isaac Jones' Library Infrastructure Project
is actively seeking to turn hmake into a Haskell-only library with
a readily-accessible API, so the prospects of being able to use it
natively on Windows will increase as that project matures.

Regards,
    Malcolm