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From: TOKILEY@aol.com
Message-ID: <9e.2ded136.261acbd3@aol.com>
Date: Tue, 4 Apr 2000 00:38:43 EDT
Subject: Re: Massive changes to Win32 makefile
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Re: Massive changes to Win32 makefile

It seems a little silly to even be worrying about all
this when you have actually released the code and
you are still simply discovering that there are files 
in APR and 2.0 that aren't even used anymore 
( readdir.c earlier today ).

Also given that fact that you are in pure Alpha
and there are probably legions of other more important
things to fix than makefiles... just trash the Win32
makefiles and offer out the .DSW and .DSP for that
platform and get on with it.

On a day when a judge has actually finally ruled about
what everyone has known all along... that Microsoft
was using it's position in the marketplace to limit
fair competition... it seems funny to be saying 'what the
heck... just get married to to MSVC'... but I submit that
when a court can rule that a company is in violation of
the most stringent anti-trust laws on the books and their
stock only dips a little and then recovers immediately on
the foreign exchanges... it's time to realize that the Borg
cube really has been cruising unabated for quite some 
time now and the process is complete. 

We have been assimilated. Time to just move on.

If you don't have MSVC... stop whining and just
go and get it. ( See WAREZ if you don't have the money ).

When there is some kind of STABLE version of 2.0
and/or stabilized UNIX makefiles and/or some need 
for other makefiles the issue(s) can be addressed at 
that time. You are 'out the door' and it seems like 
90 percent of the messages and attention are simply
focused on banal things like 'how do we fix a makefile'.

In the meantime... if anyone wants to build with
Borland ( or any other Win32 compiler ) just offer them this...

( It assumes the point on your end is to offer something to
someone that doesn't even HAVE MSVC... which I honestly
don't know who that would be. I hate it and even I have it ).

1. Load your Apache project into your MSVC and 
pick Project|Export makefile.

2. Run that makefile using the following command
which will NOT re-make anything but will record the
entire 'actual' compile and link commands to a capture
file called 'rawbuild.bat'
nmake /A /P /N /U -f whatever_apache_make_is_called.mak > rawbuild.bat

3. Add that (yes) MSVC only makefile and the 
resultant rawbuild.bat output file to the source
code distribution.

4. Anyone with ANY other Win32 'C' compiler including
Borland or CC386 or Watcom can just use 'rawbuild.bat'
to build the thing... all you have to do is a quick search 
and replace on the compiler specific stuff in the file
or alias the commands. Not pretty but who cares. 
It works fine. I use this all the time for 4 different Win32
compilers.

( Editorial comment: makefiles themselves were only really
valuable when complicated programs would take all day
to re-compile on slow machines. I re-compile Apache all
the time and I always rebuild EVERYTHING all the time
and on any modern PC this is a no-brainer. Even something
with as many 'objects' as Apache can completely sew itself back 
together in less time than it takes go get a drink of water so
a lot of the fuss about makefiles anymore is 'much ado about
nothing' IMHO ).

BTW: There are now programs out there that can simply
'translate' MSVC .DSP and .DSW into 'other' GUI IDE 
project formats so what are you all worrying about? Just
commit to the MSVC stuff and get on with it.

Kevin Kiley
CTO, Remote Communications, Inc.
http://www.RemoteCommunications.com