Re: A Gtk's build system ?

[Bernhard Schuster <schuster bernhard gmail com>]

> Waf is actually pretty good at building stuff for non-Linux platforms 
> (for example, it transparently supports MSVC without the need of VS 
> project files). I'd bet that it may have some issues building for 
> Linux on non popular architectures or weird/old UNIX flavors as it 
> doesn't do the sort of comprehensive checks that autoconf does by 
> default.

Maybe this could improve the worrying situation of windows builds 
tarnyko has to deal with.

> Beyond that, the fact that is python based does make the build system 
> more portable across systems, it is certainly more portable than the 
> mashup of bash and unix command line tools that autotools sipts out.

Boils down to shell hacks vs python.

> However, building Gtk+ is not trivial and I am sure waf is going to 
> require some fixing before it can support a full build, if people 
> want to take on the task of setting up a branch and checking what it 
> would look like, I would be happy to help upstreaming any extensions 
> needed (I have commit rights in the waf repository). On the other 
> hand I wouldn't keep my hopes too high that the Gtk+ maintainers are 
> going to happily move over unless someone shows what major 
> improvements the port would bring.

Good to know. I actually might get my hands dirty this weekend.