On 29 May 2001 13:48:38 -0700, John P Cavanaugh wrote:
> On Tue, May 29, 2001 at 04:20:24PM -0400, Mark Chu-Carroll wrote:
> >
> > On 26 May 2001 22:27:38 -0400, Garance A Drosihn wrote:
> > > At 3:48 PM -0400 5/26/01, Greg Hudson wrote:
> > > >Greg Stein wrote:
> > > >> Yup. It is quite easy to build the one thing you're concerned
> > > > > with. We don't have a notion of "everything in this directory",
> > > > > but when you consider it: that is a bit bogus (the collection
> > > > > of targets in any given directory is rather arbitrary w.r.t.
> > > > > the desire to build something specific).
> > > >
> > > >In theory it might be bogus, but in reality directories usually
> > > >have a solid meaning, like "the foo library and its tests".
> > > >
> > > >The arguments for a single Makefile are valid but not even close
> > > >to compelling for real projects, and so a single Makefile winds
> > > >up being merely bizarre and different for no good reason. Having
> > > >to "(cd ../..; make libsvn_foo)" instead of just "make" isn't the
> > > >end of the world, but it will irritate people who are used to
> > > >doing it the normal way.
> > >
> > > While this is a tangent to the general subversion topics, it is
> > > one which is of some interest to me as I've also found automake
> > > and friends rather frustrating to deal with in some circumstances.
> > > I am generally convinced that there MUST be some way to improve
> > > on it, although I must admit I haven't quite figured out what
> > > that might be...
> >
> > I actually have a suggestion here, which is going to ridiculous at
> > first, but I'm actually entirely serious.
> >
> > Kill make.
> >
> > The fundamental problem here isn't that there's a clear advantage
> > between recursive makefiles and big makefiles, or that there's some
> > basic problem in automake that we can just fix, and then the kinds
> > of problems that are being discussed here will disappear.
> >
> > The fundamental problem is that make sucks.
>
> While I agree with the premise we need to be careful about grounding
> ourselves. Subversion is enough of a stretch, trying to use something
> other than make at the same time is probably straying too far from the
> original goal of replacing cvs. Lets not try to boil the ocean...
I didn't mean to suggest that we do this *right now*. I'm just trying
to point out that the discussion we're having right here about build
problems is really related to flaws in the underlying tool, and that
any solution we come up with is inevitably flawed because of the flaws
of the underlying make tool.
Sometime, when some group of people have time (after subversion
stabilizes? when my group at IBM gets done with the VC functionality
of Coven?) that the make problem really needs to be addressed.
-Mark
--
"There's nothing I like better than the sound of a banjo, unless of
course it's the sound of a chicken caught in a vacuum cleaner. "
Mark Craig Chu-Carroll (mcc@watson.ibm.com)
IBM T.J. Watson Research Center
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Received on Sat Oct 21 14:36:30 2006