Re: build system alternatives (Was: Using vala in GNOME)

["natan yellin" <aantny gmail com>]

On Mon, Jun 30, 2008 at 9:59 PM, Mikkel Kamstrup Erlandsen <mikkel kamstrup gmail com> wrote:

2008/6/30 Gustavo J. A. M. Carneiro <gjc inescporto pt>:

> On Mon, 2008-06-30 at 12:01 -0300, Johan Dahlin wrote:
>> Gustavo J. A. M. Carneiro wrote:
>> > On Mon, 2008-06-30 at 15:07 +0100, Alberto Ruiz wrote:
>> [..]
>>
>> >> Plus, CMake is getting more mature and stable and it already supports
>> >> VisualStudio and XCode project files conversion, lack of proper
>> >> extensibility being its only downside at the moment.
>> >
>> > Lack of extensibility, and use of another arcane custom made programming
>> > language (if we can call it that) for everything.
>> >
>> > No, CMake is not an answer.  It is not significantly better than
>> > autotools to justify a switch to it IMHO.
>>
>> CMake *is* considerably better. Xcode/VisualStudio are killer features which
>> alone would make a switch worth it.
>
> I disagree that Xcode/VisualStudio are killer features.  A powerful
> programming language and extensibility are way better features IMHO.
> Does a significant percentage of GNOME developers use any of these IDEs?
> Without such data you can't assert that those are killer features.
>
> For the case of Vala, I don't see how CMake handles it any better than
> autotools.
>
>>
>> Can we please start to organize ourselves and try to move forward with
>> switching to another build system?
>
> We can't switch to any single build system any more than we can switch
> to a single DVCS.  Or to a single programming language, for that matter!
> Different developers value different features.  Modern developers have
> to adapt to different environments.  I, for example, regularly program
> in C, C++, and Python.  I know how to use cvs, subversion, bazaar, git
> (poorly), and mercurial.  In particular I use subversion, bazaar, and
> mercurial very regularly, all at the same time, git not so much only
> because I didn't need to.  I can hack plain makefiles,
> autoconf/automake, waf, and scons.

And is this an acceptable barrier of entry to Gnome development?

Agreed. While the skills that you mentioned do come with time no matter what, you want to avoid forcing beginner developers to chew more than they can swallow. 

Cheers,
Mikkel

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