[Zlib-devel] Misc build fixups

[Cosmin Truta]

On Wed, Dec 30, 2009 at 1:01 AM, Enrico Weigelt wrote:
>> I searched the net for Treebuild,
>> but I found nothing relevant. The old homepage
>> (http://treebuild.metux.de) has been 404 for a long time.
>
> right, the site is currently down, but treebuild still exists:
>
>        http://repo.or.cz/w/treebuild.git

Ok, I had a look at that repository. All I found there was source
code, though. No documentation, not even basic use instructions, no
signs of user base, user feedback, or links to a support forum. Even
the source code is virtually uncommented.

Do the things that I enumerated above exist elsewhere? Because if not,
I still maintain that treebuild.xml should be removed from the zlib
source distribution, until Treebuild does become mature and viable.

Also, do you have any users outside zlib? I don't want to sound like
one who claims "nobody cares about you, so neither should we". Gaining
popularity for one's pet project is a chicken-and-egg problem that I
understand -- but has anyone else adopted your build system, since the
time you had submitted treebuild.xml to zlib a few years ago?

I wrote:
>> I encourage the use of mature and proven build systems like CMake or
>> Apache Ant, and I'm okay even with the lesser-known ones like Perforce
>> Jam.

So as I said before, I'm not opposed to the idea of adding support for
viable build systems. But from what I'm seeing right now, Treebuild
has yet to come out of its status of (what seems to be) a one person's
pet project, neither too popular, nor documented, nor well-supported.
I apologize if I'm wrong, but that's how I see it.

Enrico Weigelt wrote:
> Actually, in our case, tools like ant won't bring any benefit over
> current Makefile's, since it's quite the same concept: rule-based
> system to describe the build process.

Sorry, but that statement not just incorrect, it is also a bit naive.
There are people who moved from Make to Ant, you know! Even for C
projects!

Enrico Weigelt wrote:
> Treebuild is the only build tool
> I know of, which only models the _structure_ of the project (as the
> developers design it), leaving the whole process of building (including
> all the platforms specific stuff) to the buildtool.

I don't deny what Treebuild is, but it's hardly the only one. Project
files for any IDE, take your pick, Borland, Visual Studio, Eclipse,
Apple XCode, are exactly that. Now, those formats might not be as
friendly as Treebuild's simple XML format, that I admit. (Some IDEs do
make friendly project files format, though.) At the very least,
treebuild.xml could be placed under the projects/ directory, not in
the main source tree.

But that is not the point. Every new build system that comes along
with a new philosophy, does so because it claims it does some things
better, and I guess Treebuild is no different. The point is, the
success of a project depends on so many more things than just a sound
paradigm. I couldn't even tell how good or bad Treebuild is, because I
know nothing about it. (Does anybody?) You do need to provide, at
best, a location with essential links and essential information
(essential use instructions!), if not even a full-blown user manual.
And if both the tool and its paradigm are that good, and there are
prospects for the tool to become a viable and long-lived project, then
users will undoubtedly come to it.

And then I wouldn't mind seeing it to zlib, either.

Best regards,
Cosmin