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From: "Mattmann, Chris A (388J)" <chris.a.mattmann@jpl.nasa.gov>
To: "lucy-dev@incubator.apache.org" <lucy-dev@incubator.apache.org>
Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2010 12:31:44 -0800
Thread-Topic: [lucy-dev] Slow migration to Makefiles
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Subject: RE: [lucy-dev] Slow migration to Makefiles

Hmm, my 2 cents is that it's infinitely simpler to understand a build.xml f=
ile (or better yet a Maven pom.xml :) -- just my opinion people no tomatoes=
!) than it is to understand makefiles, or better yet, programs that generat=
e makefiles on the fly, or that generate other build scripts on the fly etc=
 etc.=20

Ant is available on nearly every Linux distribution that I've come across i=
n recent years (installed into /usr/bin/ant or some variant).=20

That said, these are just my preferences (as are Marvin's for Make/programs=
 that generate makes and so forth :) ). What do others think? The key quest=
ion to ask yourselves is:=20

1. will Marvin be the *only* RM that this project ever sees?
2. will Marvin be the *only* person building this project, ever?
3. of the 2-3 existing Lucy developers, what are the preferences? I know Ma=
rvin's: what about Peter/Nate?
4. of the 1 new Lucy committers as part of Apache Lucy in the Incubator (e.=
g., Simon?)
5. are the mentors ever going to build and use this system? Or scarier yet,=
 maintain it? My answer on that is that at some point I'd like to build it =
myself and understand it, but sophisticated Makefiles are not my cup of tea=
.

The community right now is small so it will be very driven by whomever pick=
s up the shovel and starts to dig the hole, but it would be nice if the too=
l used to dig that hole is something that not only Marvin can wield...

Cheers,
Chris
________________________________________
From: Marvin Humphrey [marvin@rectangular.com]
Sent: Tuesday, November 16, 2010 12:16 PM
To: lucy-dev@incubator.apache.org
Subject: [lucy-dev] Slow migration to Makefiles

On Tue, Nov 16, 2010 at 09:39:20AM -0800, Mattmann, Chris A (388J) wrote:

> > Over time, we should expect to migrate a lot of the build structure to
> > Makefiles.  I hate make, but it's the lowest common denominator.
>
> Is that strictly true? I mean, the reality is whatever you could do in ma=
ke,
> could be done in e.g., Ant, right?

Sure -- but we could also do everything in Perl/Ruby/Python/etc.  The prima=
ry
advantage that Make has over Ant and all of those is that it's already ther=
e
on every system.

The point of migrating to Makefiles would be to share build routines across
host bindings.  Building Lucy for C or Python shouldn't require Perl, or Ja=
va,
or whatever.  For now, we have to put up with a Perl dependency, but I woul=
d
like to eliminate that, at least for simple building of the library as a us=
er
would.  (Developers will continue to have to deal with the Perl dependency,
but after I rewrite Clownfish::Parser to be based on the Lemon parser
generator rather than Parse::RecDescent, they'll only need core Perl.)

We don't want to depend on Make exclusively for the build IMO -- the
contortions necessary for cross-platform compatibility when solving complex
problems aren't worth it.  Instead, I think we should keep the Makefiles
simple, but use scripts to generate input for them.  Probably such dev help=
er
scripts will continue to be written in Perl, like the update_snowstem.pl I
just added last week.

I don't think it's reasonable to expect Simon or Robert to fully grok a
sophisticated Module::Build subclass like trunk/perl/buildlib/Lucy/Build.pm=
.
However, I do think that it's reasonable to expect Lucy committers to
understand shared Makefiles, and I also think it's reasonable to expect the=
m
to understand simple Perl scripts like update_snowstem.pl.

Marvin Humphrey