Re: [qub] need opinions on potential new build process

[stephan b. <st...@ei...>]

On Wednesday 28 May 2003 06:33, Rusty Ballinger wrote:
> Wellll... I think it's reasonable to require:
> - GNU make.  It has so many features missing in other makes that
>   *not* using it makes development harder.  

Amen.

>(& if we weren't using
>   gmake's handy functions etc., we'd have to code around that in some
>   shell script which would also likely introduce dependencies.)

i'm pretty pleased with the way our workaround worked out, actually. i 
expected a lot more pain from it.

> I just assume life without gmake would be horrible.

i haven't even contemplated such a horrible thought. ;)

> - perl 5.
> - Qt 3.x, obviously.
> - "a recent compiler" which supports templates & other stuff.
>   (Basically, if it's good enough to compile Qt, it ought to be good
>   enough for us.)

i would think so. It'd be useless to support machines which can't 
compile Qt. That said, though, i'm certain that Qt is far more portable 
than anything i've written.

> Regarding bash & GNU sed... my feeling is, if a makefile has some
> rule which is complex enough to require features specific to bash or
> GNU sed, then use perl instead.

Not only is that a good point, but i came across a case the other day 
where this was indeed the solution. /some/ versions of sed had a 
problem with a particularly odd regex. Perl was the fix.

> (Sure, easy for me to say, because I
> like perl & hate shell scripts, but I do think it's more portable
> that way--in the last five years, have you used a Unix/Unix-like box
> which had bash but not perl?  Or GNU sed but not perl? 

Excellent point. No, i haven't. (Well, okay, my ipaq doesn't count. ;)

> I'm not
> familiar enough with Bourne/Korn shell to know how painful it is to
> limit oneself to those guys if you're going to stick to shell
> scripts.)

Ditto.

> Noo, the question is, "does it compile for the kind of people I want
> contributions from?"  You want the answer to be "yes" for as large a
> set as possible!  (well, "within reasonable effort...")  Also,
> remember that cross-platform source trees are inherently cool.

Again, excellent points. To be honest, if i could get Qt to build on our 
Solaris boxes, i'd be much more hyped up about cross-platform :/.
(God, i hate Solaris... being given a stock Solaris box is a slap in the 
face: "here's your Monster Truck! We've left off the tires and steering 
wheel, though, to help you avoid hurting yourself!")

-- 
----- stephan
The Guy With No Job Title
st...@ei... - http://www.einsurance.de
"Intellectual property" is a truly bogus concept - every thought which
every human has ever had has come about, if indirectly, as the result
of interaction with other humans. Thus, i must assert that no single
human thought is truly original, and that every idea therefor
belongs in the Public Domain.