Re: Why do EPICS Base startup scripts refer to non-depedencies?

[Andrew Johnson <anj@aps.anl.gov>]

Hi Lewis,

On 06/22/2018 10:50 AM, J. Lewis Muir wrote:
> Why do the scripts in the EPICS Base 3.14, 3.15, and 3.16 startup
> directory refer to things that are not dependencies of EPICS
> Base (e.g., EPICS_EXTENSIONS, PSPRINTER for some extensions,
> EPICS_DISPLAY_PATH and BROWSER for MEDM, ADTHOME for ADT, Exceed X11,
> etc.)?

Because they used to be managed by Janet Anderson who also handled
maintenance for the EPICS Extensions tree, and none of the developers
who are left have had the time to finish going through and cleaning them
all up properly since she retired.

I started developing code to install the contents of the startup
directory to $(INSTALL_LOCATION)/startup a few months back, and I also
did some clean-ups of the script files at the same time, but I haven't
had time to finish that work yet.

> IMO, the startup scripts should only refer to things related to EPICS
> Base.  For example, EPICS Base doesn't know anything about MEDM nor
> should it.  Therefore, <EPICS Base>/startup/Site.profile should not
> set EPICS_DISPLAY_PATH or anything else that relates to MEDM.  A much
> better way would be for the EPICS Extensions package (currently known
> as "Extensions build configure files") to provide a Site.profile, for
> example, that can be edited to provide the environment or shell changes
> required by the different extensions.  Since MEDM, for example, is
> an extension, then EPICS_DISPLAY_PATH and BROWSER should be set in
> the Site.profile provided with the EPICS Extensions package, not the
> Site.profile in EPICS Base.

I agree with everything you wrote there. In my branch I cleaned out most
of Janet's commented-out settings from the win32.bat file and also added
a windows.bat file for windows-x64 architecture. My versions still have
commented-out sections for Extensions and Exceed, but I don't have any
problem with them being deleted as well.

If you want to help clean up the startup directory I would be happy to
work with you on this. Since these files are generally identical for all
release series we only need to make changes to the earliest branch
(currently 3.14, but without additional help the next Base-3.14.12.8
release will be the last one we do from that branch). Changes made to
3.14 will get merged up to the later branches automatically.

My work on installing into $(INSTALL_LOCATION)/startup was developed on
the 3.15 branch and I don't think I would back-port that to 3.14 because
it involves changes to the build rules which have evolved a bit more in
the 3.15 and later series, but that won't affect the work to update the
scripts themselves.

EPICS is an open source development collaboration, and we depend on our
users to help implement changes. I hope you will be able to find some
time to contribute.

Thanks,

- Andrew

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