Graham Klyne <gk@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