Informal Releases

[Charles]

It will always be useful to have formal releases such as "0.8" and the upcoming "0.9", but it can also be useful to take snapshots of Cobra at various points and make those available. This will encourage more testing and feedback. It also gives users early access to features and fixes that may improve their productivity.

First of all, note that you can already get the latest Cobra via HowToInstallFromSource. But some people don't have Subversion and others may not be comfortable using "the latest" at what will essentially be a random point in time.

So I'm introducing "informal releases" which I think will happen 1 - 4 times a month. As these are informal, they do not come with polished packaging or finalized release notes. If an informal release is severely broken, it will not be fixed, but a new informal release made. I won't put a lot of time into these, otherwise they won't take place frequently. In fact, I've automated most of the work with a script.

Each informal release is stamped with its date such as 2009-03-01.

A big part of the picture is that I'll try to pick points in time when I think the repository is stable and there are interesting improvements over the last informal release.

Here is the first one: http://cobra-language.com/downloads/informal-releases/

I would appreciate it if someone would download this, install it and report the results back to here. I've tested on Mac and XP, but it could be a "works for the developer" package. Once I hear back, I can post this on the Downloads page and the front page.

And feedback on this new idea is welcome.

[Csaba]

Hi Chuck,

I downloaded the informal release and tried it.
The Cobra modified Scitex (v1.67) I'm using generates "C:\Cobra\bin\cobra.exe "progname.cobra" when pressing the "Go"-key.
But the installation puts the compiler and some files in C:\Cobra\Cobra-0.8.0-post-2009-03-01bin\
So I manually copied the files from C:\Cobra\Cobra-0.8.0-post-2009-03-01bin\ to "C:\Cobra\bin\cobra.exe and replaced the old files. Then it worked with Scitex.

Regards
Csaba

[Charles]

My C:\Cobra\bin contains a cobra.bat which reads:

Code: Select all

@"C:\Cobra\Cobra-0.8.0-post-2009-03-01\bin\cobra.exe" %*

So the cobra.bat points to the last Cobra that was installed by install-from-workspace.

Each Cobra install gets its own directory in C:\Cobra and then what's in bin\cobra.bat points to the latest. Makes it easier to rollback if you need to.

[Charles]

I blogged about informal releases and perhaps explained them a little better there.

[jonathandavid]

I'll try this ASAP and report on it.

[Charles]

So are you using it yet?

[jonathandavid]

So are you using it yet?

I've tried it, but it doesn't work for me.

This is the error message I get when I run "install-from-workspace.bat"

If you are on Windows Vista and you get an error message then
you may need to run with elevated privileges, such as with an
admin account or power user account.

Compiling installation program...

C:\Cobra-Informal-Release-2009-03-01\Source>Snapshot\cobra -debug -ert:yes Insta
llFromWorkspace.cobra --
error: No se puede encontrar el módulo especificado. (Excepción de HRESULT: 0x80
07007E)
Compilation failed - 1 error, 0 warnings
Not running due to errors above.

C:\Cobra-Informal-Release-2009-03-01\Source>

The bit in Spanish could be translated as:

"error: cannot find the specified module . (HRESULT exception: 0x8007007E)"

I did a quick investigation but couldn't find out what's going on. One thing you might like to know is that comp.bat works like a charm, so the problem must be inside "Install-from-workspace.cobra".

[Charles]

Yikes, what an awful error message. I can't do anything with the hexadecimal address, but I could have used the name of the specified module.

Can you change the last line in install-from-workspace.bat to have the ".exe" on "cobra"? So from this:
@Snapshot\cobra -debug -ert:yes InstallFromWorkspace.cobra -- %*

to this:
@Snapshot\cobra.exe -debug -ert:yes InstallFromWorkspace.cobra -- %*

Because that's one difference I see with comp.bat.

I just re-tested on my system with a fresh download and it works for me.

Has anyone else tested Cobra-Informal-Release-2009-03-01.zip on Windows?

[jonathandavid]

Yikes, what an awful error message.
Can you change the last line in install-from-workspace.bat to have the ".exe" on "cobra"? So from this:
@Snapshot\cobra -debug -ert:yes InstallFromWorkspace.cobra -- %*

No, that doesn't fix it.

I've investigated a little bit more and I'm positive the problem is in those lines from InstallFromWorkspace.cobra:

use System.EnterpriseServices

[Charles]

Then drop this modified InstallFromWorkspace.cobra over the old one and try again.

Let me know how it goes.