Re: autotools gives autopain

[BJörn Lindqvist <bjourne gmail com>]

> >According to the devs, that is a feature of scons. This page has a
> >workaround: http://www.scons.org/cgi-bin/wiki/ImportingEnvironmentSettings
> >Although I think your real problem is badly written SConstruct-files.
> >
> It may be the fault of the person writing the SConstruct file, but it is
> a problem that is not often encountered for autoconf/automake projects.

Indeed. But considering that the workaround is less than 15 characters
to type and that the scons developers probably have some good reasons
for not inheriting the environment by default I don't think it's much
to argue about.

> >I think you are being unfair to scons. Ofcourse it is not right to
> >hardwire architecture dependent paths in SConstruct-files, but that's
> >not a problem with scons, it's a problem with bad SConstruct files.
> >Likewise, someone could hardwire installation paths in Makefiles.
> >
> Again, this is not a problem often seen for programs using
> autoconf/automake for the build system, so it really sounds like scons
> just makes it easier for a developer to shoot themselves in the foot.
>
> (this is probably a slightly unfair comparison though: I am sure there
> are areas where scons makes it easier for developers to do the right thing).

Yes it is. You are comparing apples with oranges.

make = scons
autotools = bksys/project specific Python/???

I think I may have misrepresented scons in this thread. I wrote
"replace Autotools with scons." But that's not really true. What I
really meant was "replace Autotools/make with scons and a
configuration system written in Python around it." Apologises about
that.

> Are there any particular medium complexity packages you could point out
> using bksys?  Have those modules been packaged by any Linux distros?  If
> so, did they need to resort to any ugly workarounds?

rosegarden, kdissert and codeine. rosegarden and kdissert are packaged
by Ubuntu. No clue about ugly workarounds.

> The command Stanislav gave approximates this if all files for the
> program fall under /usr, but would not be enough if some files should go
> under e.g. /etc.  A DESTDIR install should rebase every installed file.

In scons, the rough equivalent would be:

opts = Options()
opts.AddPathOption("destdir", "Base path for installed files", "/")
opts.Update(env)

And then prefix all installation paths with env["destdir"].

--
mvh Björn