Re: [CsMain] Build Process

[Eric S. <sun...@su...>]

John Anderson wrote:
> The build process of planeshift expects the $CRYSTAL and $CEL
> directories to look like they do after a ./configure and jam.  Crystal
> and CEL both have the capability to jam install.

The normal way for a client project to divorce itself from this type of 
low-level detail is to utilize the cs-config and cel-config scripts to 
determine the header and library directories, as well as compiler and 
linker flags.

If the client project is Autoconf-based, then it can even further 
divorce itself from cs-config and cel-config by utilizing the supplied 
crystal.m4 and cel.m4 Autoconf macro files. (The macros themselves 
employ cs-config and cel-config, but only as underlying implementation 
machinery about which the client's configure.ac need have no knowledge.) 
This is a good solution for Auto-confiscated projects.

Unless PlaneShift has requirements which are not addressed by these 
solutions, then the best approach would be to start utilizing the 
abstractions provided by these facilities.

> In my opinion planeshift's sources should look for their headers and
> libraries in the directory tree created by jam install, and not in the
> directory tree that is created by simply building but not installing.
> This is important for a number of reasons.

The nice thing about employing the abstractions mentioned above 
(cs-config, cel-config, crystal.m4, cel.m4) is that this type of detail 
becomes much less of an issue. The cs-config and cel-config scripts 
magically handle the disparity between installed vs. not-installed 
versions of CS and CEL. It is sometimes convenient for developers to be 
able to work on the projects without having to install the various 
resources, or to prefer a development copy of CS or CEL over an 
installed one, so it would be unfortunate to limit clients to using only 
installed resources. The cs-config and cel-config scripts magically 
support both modes.

> Finally, I would really like see the any user specific information, like
> the file that populates the email field and password if saved, be moved
> out of the planeshift base directory into $HOME/.planeshift/.  Linux, by
> nature, is a multi-user environment.  If I were a planeshift gamer, and
> my wife decided to play too, we should be both be able to save
> independent user specific rescources in our respective home directories.

CS provides a couple different mechanisms for storing per-user data. 
These mechanisms are portable, should work correctly across platforms, 
and are even "roaming" profile-friendly. Perhaps PlaneShift should 
consider employing these facilities.

-- ES