want to contribute ports for tuxmath and tuxtype (eventually)

[markd at macports.org]

>I'm the current lead programmer/maintainer for two educational kids
>games, "Tux, Of Math Command" (basic math drill) and "Tux Typing"
>(learning
>to type).† Both are GPL free software with autotools-based builds, and
>all of
>the needed libs (SDL and friends, gettext) are already in MacPorts.
>
>I'm new to the Mac.† Tuxmath builds and installs correctly with
>"./configure;
>make; sudo make install" and runs fine on our new Leopard Intel iMac.† I
>initially found your project while trying to figure out a straightforward
>way
>to get universal builds of the needed libs onto my system - I'm in the
>process of learning to make a universal package.
>
>The first snag is that my program depends on SDL_image, and thus on smpeg,
>whose universal build currently fails, but I see there is already a bug on
>this from just a couple of days ago:
>
>[
>https://owa016.msoutlookonline.net/owa/redir.aspx?C=8ce54085a83c4de9bc3bbce7aecbd6dd&URL=http%3a%2f%2ftrac.macosforge.org%2fprojects%2fmacports%2fticket%2f14174
>]http://trac.macosforge.org/projects/macports/ticket/14174
>
>It seems to me that what I should *really* do is to learn about your ports
>system, get my program set up for it and contribute it to MacPorts.
>
>(fwiw, I understand that tuxmath is in the FreeBSD ports collection,
>although
>I am not involved with it - I assume studying the FreeBSD port of my
>project
>would be a good starting point?)
>
>Also, is this list just for development of the port infrastructure
>itself, or
>is it also the place for help with individual ports by "client"
>programmers
>like me?

Hi David,

Welcome to the Mac and MacPorts communities!  I frequently look at FreeBSD
ports before making a port to try to see if there are any challenges I may
not be aware of, though it is always possible there will be challenges
unique to OS X or MacPorts.  The biggest problem you find with porting to
MacPorts that doesn't bother FreeBSD porters is when when developers don't
properly support the DESTDIR variable.  MacPorts needs for that to work to
have a legitimate port because MacPorts install to an intermediate
location before it gets copied into place in the filesystem.  For apps in
this condition, I sometimes find OpenBSD has had to solve this problem
too, so I check out their patches for DESTDIR support and sometimes use
them as is, though I always make sure to send patches I make like that
upstream since the apps really should be fixed at the source.

Just looking at the FreeBSD port for tuxmath, I see no patches at all. 
That is a very good sign, especially since the FreeBSD folks seem to be
sort of patch happy; many for reasons I can not figure out.  So that one
(didn't look at the other) should be a very trivial matter to port.  See
the guide (still in progress) and be sure to ask questions. 
http://guide.macports.org/

Mark