[openbeos-build-team] Re: Goals for the new build system
- From: "Erik Jaesler" <erik@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: openbeos-build-team@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 04 Jul 2002 19:44:57 -0700
I am very much in agreement with Ingo here. We want the system to be
simple to use, but not necessarily doing everything for us. I think the
BeOS makefile system is a beautiful example of that (esp. since I don't
feel like I'm actually using make ;), so that might be a good place to
look in order to see what level of abstraction to shoot for. I, for
one, don't mind listing my source files, app/lib name, libraries to link
to, etc., explicitly -- I don't want to have to write rules in order to
get most things done.
One thing I want to throw out there is that I'm very unenthusiastic
about the idea of having a configuration script that needs running.
This is exactly the sort of thing I would like to see built in. The Be
makefile system builds projects correctly on x86 and PPC without any
work on the users part. Likewise, I think our system should deal with
platform specific nitty-gritty without the user having to do *anything*.
I want to checkout source and run jam -- that's it.
My $0.02,
e
>> >Maybe it wa a bit harsh, but then suggesting we rewrite the entire
>> build
>> >system is pretty dramatic!
>>
>> Note: *I* will rewrite it. You don't have to worry about anything.
>> If
>> Ingo wants to help, great. But I can't (and wouldn't) force him to
>> help, just as you can't force me to keep the current system :)
>
>Yes, I think a well designed build system is important and I'm willing
>to help you to achieve that goal. But please consider these two points:
>1) I also have real coding work to be done -- currently we're starting
>to tackle the registrar and related classes, and as it is a crucial
>part, we want to finish it as soon as possible -- and thus I would
>really dislike, if I had to spend a big amount of time with the build
>system.
>2) To avoid upsetting David entirely ;-) it is a good idea to never get
>the CVS repository into a state in which things don't work, i.e. the
>changes should be happen completely unnoticable/seamless for the
>developers. This can be done without any problems, when one person does
>it alone -- change the things in the working copy until they are
>perfect and then commit everything virtually atomically -- but may be a
>bit more complicated for two persons.
>
>Regarding some points in your original mail:
>
>> 3. [...]
>>
>> Since we are using Jam 2.4 now, which has
>> the GLOB rule, we could just use KernelObjects [ GLOB . *.c ] ; in
>> each
>> kernel sub-directory. Or, if we also need the $(SOURCE_GRIST)
>> appended
>> to each source (which must be the case given the current Jamfiles),
>> we
>> could write a rule to do this using GLOB and a for loop, so that
>> again
>> we have avoided the hard-coding. I say if we can use the power of
>> Jam
>> to make our build files simpler, we should.
>
>David already explained why GLOBing won't work for the kernel. I just
>want to add another, certainly very subjective concern. I'd like to
>warn to be careful with adding too "intelligent" mechanisms. If such a
>thing restricts the user in specific cases or may have unwanted side
>effects, don't implement it. The automatically collecting sources via
>GLOB seems to be a candidate, as right from the start you had to think
>about special cases and that for the very small benefit of not needing
>to list the source files explicitely -- for a developer who writes
>hundreds of lines of code into a new source file it is nothing to add
>its name to a Jamfile.
>
>Regarding the separate objects directory I totally agree with David and
>Michael. Arguments were given. All larger projects I know of, separate
>the generated files from the sources. The fact that Jam supports this
>quite nicely should also encourage us to do this.
>
>The other points in your mail (unless I missed one, what me well be as
>I'm pretty tired ;-) are very good.
>
>CU, Ingo
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the
argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
-William Pitt, British prime-minister (1759-1806)
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