Re: [Caml-list] build tools - good vs. fast, both cheap

[skaller <skaller@users.sourceforge.net>]

On Sat, 2004-04-17 at 05:39, Richard Jones wrote:
> On Sat, Apr 17, 2004 at 04:10:25AM +1000, skaller wrote:
> > I'm against make. It just isn't necessary. Make is for C developers,
> > not Ocaml package installation. To build a package it suffices
> > to run a sequence of commands in a fixed order.
> 
> Controversial view.  

Yes, so it seems :D

> Why ..?  GNU make in particular is a very useful

Partly that is because many programming systems follow
the C model. Partly because of familiarity. And partly
because some of the underlying logic (dependencies etc)
is a genuine part of a building concept.

> tool for its specialised niche.  I use it all the time to build all
> lots of things (not just C or OCaml).

I'm not saying it isn't useful, rather that it isn't
useful enough these days. 

When I worked at the telco OT with C++ code base
of several million LOC, they didn't use make as such.
They used a custom general purpose tool called Makeit.
It used the same idea, but it also understood some
extra things:

(1) modules
(2) multiple platforms
(3) multiple target classes (standard, optimised, debugging)

and it could build the lot at once, or not, as you chose.
[It also knew about versioning, although I don't think that
part ever worked properly]

So for example you could have:

exes=A,B,C
platforms=Solaris,Linux
kinds=opt,debug
links=static,shlib

and it knew enough category theory to 'generate'
the product targets internally. 


-- 
John Skaller, mailto:skaller@users.sf.net
voice: 061-2-9660-0850, 
snail: PO BOX 401 Glebe NSW 2037 Australia
Checkout the Felix programming language http://felix.sf.net



-------------------
To unsubscribe, mail caml-list-request@inria.fr Archives: http://caml.inria.fr
Bug reports: http://caml.inria.fr/bin/caml-bugs FAQ: http://caml.inria.fr/FAQ/
Beginner's list: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ocaml_beginners