Re: [reSIProcate] Autotools after the directory reorg
On Mon, 2005-10-10 at 12:33 -0500, Robert Sparks wrote:
> Jay -
>
> I've pretty much given up on an autotools based parallel build system.
>
> While there are a few things that it does that the custom build
> system doesn't do,
> the warts that come with it appear to be too much for most of this
> development
> community to live with. I'm going to try to see if putting effort
> into getting it to do
> those things will pay off better than trying to maintain the extra
> build system.
>
> Among those are:
>
> + being able to build separate pieces of the project independently,
> leveraging
> other parts that may already be built. (The current notion of all
> the projects having
> to live in particular relative places in the filesystem is
> something we need to address).
>
> + being able to configure against different instances of third party
> dependencies.
> (such as different versions of bdb as you were running into below).
> This needs to be scriptable (being able to specify everything on
> the configure
> command line is sufficient).
>
> + making sure that the resulting built libraries can be _used_ from
> other autotools
> based projects without having to "install" them.
>
> What else is missing from your perspective?
- Detecting when dependencies are missing or the wrong version.
- Not using libtool to build shared libraries
This is useful because a libtool library carries metadata with it.
If library B uses library A, I can just declare that I'm using B
and it will take care of making sure that any flags needed for A
are included.
I'm more than willing to help with any autotools issues, but I agree
that it's probably pointless to shift if you're going to try to maintain
it as a parallel system.
FYI - an interesting selection from a list of reasons why open source
projects don't get wide participation:
http://www.openxource.com/crossings/2004/11/21/antipattern_ignore_established_tools/brief
--
Scott Lawrence tel:+1-781-938-5306;ext=162 or sip:slawrence@xxxxxxxxxxx
Consulting Engineer - Pingtel Corp. http://www.pingtel.com/
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