[Zlib-devel] Misc build fixups

[Enrico Weigelt]

Cosmin Truta wrote:

> Ok, I had a look at that repository. All I found there was 
> sourcecode, though. No documentation, not even basic use
> instructions, nosigns of user base, user feedback, or links
> to a support forum.

True, this all was on the wiki, which was gone when my server
died - I didnt find time to reinstall it yet :(

I'll try to pick it up in the next days (frak! could anyone
sponsor me some helping hands ? ;-o)

> Because if not,I still maintain that treebuild.xml should be
> removed from the zlib source distribution, until Treebuild does
> become mature and viable.

Does it hurt anyhow ?

> Also, do you have any users outside zlib? 

Yes, several inhouse projects (which cannot be published freely).

> > 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 Cprojects!

Seems we're talking about different topics. My point is:

In a rule-based system you describe the process how some package
is built. As these processes tend to vary heavily between platforms,
you'll need to have lots of platform specific rules. You can work
around hand-coding everything afresh for each single package by
using stuff like autotools, mkfile-libraries, whatever. But you
won't get a final solution for that problem.

My approach instead is completely different: as an package
developer you just describe the structure of the software (eg.
I have some library foo, consisting of several sourcefiles,
having a list of imports, etc) and DO NOT care about the
actual building process at all. That's a fundamentally
different paradigm.

> I don't deny what Treebuild is, but it's hardly the only one. 
> Projectfiles for any IDE, take your pick, Borland, Visual Studio,
> Eclipse,Apple XCode, are exactly that.

Partially true. But they're tied to the IDE, not as an generic
buildsystem.

> At the very least,treebuild.xml could be placed under the projects/ 
> directory, not inthe main source tree.

That would hurt treebuild, since it expects the buildfile in the
project root. This comes from the philosophy "make it as simple
as possible".


cu
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