On Tue, 2008-07-01 at 17:51 +0200, Pavel Rojtberg wrote: > Gustavo J. A. M. Carneiro wrote: > > On Mon, 2008-06-30 at 23:45 +0300, natan yellin wrote: > >> > >> On Mon, Jun 30, 2008 at 9:59 PM, Mikkel Kamstrup Erlandsen > >> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> 2008/6/30 Gustavo J. A. M. Carneiro<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > >> > >> > On Mon, 2008-06-30 at 12:01 -0300, Johan Dahlin wrote: > >> >> Gustavo J. A. M. Carneiro wrote: > >> >> > On Mon, 2008-06-30 at 15:07 +0100, Alberto Ruiz wrote: > >> >> [..] > >> >> > >> >> >> Plus, CMake is getting more mature and stable and it > >> already supports > >> >> >> VisualStudio and XCode project files conversion, lack of > >> proper > >> >> >> extensibility being its only downside at the moment. > >> >> > > >> >> > Lack of extensibility, and use of another arcane custom > >> made programming > >> >> > language (if we can call it that) for everything. > >> >> > > >> >> > No, CMake is not an answer. It is not significantly > >> better than > >> >> > autotools to justify a switch to it IMHO. > >> >> > >> >> CMake *is* considerably better. Xcode/VisualStudio are > >> killer features which > >> >> alone would make a switch worth it. > >> > > >> > I disagree that Xcode/VisualStudio are killer features. A > >> powerful > >> > programming language and extensibility are way better > >> features IMHO. > >> > Does a significant percentage of GNOME developers use any of > >> these IDEs? > >> > Without such data you can't assert that those are killer > >> features. > >> > > >> > For the case of Vala, I don't see how CMake handles it any > >> better than > >> > autotools. > >> > > >> >> > >> >> Can we please start to organize ourselves and try to move > >> forward with > >> >> switching to another build system? > >> > > >> > We can't switch to any single build system any more than we > >> can switch > >> > to a single DVCS. Or to a single programming language, for > >> that matter! > >> > Different developers value different features. Modern > >> developers have > >> > to adapt to different environments. I, for example, > >> regularly program > >> > in C, C++, and Python. I know how to use cvs, subversion, > >> bazaar, git > >> > (poorly), and mercurial. In particular I use subversion, > >> bazaar, and > >> > mercurial very regularly, all at the same time, git not so > >> much only > >> > because I didn't need to. I can hack plain makefiles, > >> > autoconf/automake, waf, and scons. > >> > >> > >> And is this an acceptable barrier of entry to Gnome > >> development? > >> Agreed. While the skills that you mentioned do come with time no > >> matter what, you want to avoid forcing beginner developers to chew > >> more than they can swallow. > > > > That is a moot point. A beginner chooses *one* project to hack on, > > that's all. All he has to know is the programming language and tools of > > that single project. > > > > That is an issue when a developer wants to transition to another module, > > at which point he is probably no longer a beginner. > > > > This is basically the same thing as with programming languages. Do you > > think everything should be coded in C in order to lower the required > > skill set of beginner hackers? What about Python, C++, Vala, C#, Perl? > > We ban modules written in those other languages because they force > > developers to learn a new programming language? > > > > Besides, making life easier beginner contributors, fine, I'm all for it. > > But that has to be balanced with keeping the mental sanity of the > > contributors we already have. > > I dont think the point is that moot. Being one of the "beginner > developers" you refer to, I can say that autotools are really daunting. > As is that most of Gnome Modules are written in C. > > Up to now I tried write some patches, but always capitulated because of > some autotools and/ or C weirdness. > > And honestly I dont see why I have to learn that freaking tools, when > there is Scons/ Python which are beginner friendly and which I > personally use for my own projects. > > So my contributions this far were limited to the parts of gnome written > in python.
Rereading, this has turned into a rant, but posting in the hope that it will be useful: It often puts me off, as an experienced C developer. When I first started looking at GNOME (and indeed Linux) I was an experienced C developer, having worked on various commercial videogames, finding ways to save a few hundred bytes here and there to get stuff to fit in RAM on the target platform... and I still have trouble with the GNU autotools: I want to spend my brainpower thinking about the problem domain of the program, my users, and my code, not having to deal with a pile of hacks upon hacks for trying to workaround obsolete platforms with a broken linker (or whatever). The vast majority of the input to this tool is mere configuration data, but we're stuck with a model where it gets run through scripts on top of scripts that generate a program that's run as the developer (how many of you audit the generated scripts for malicious content?) Also, I feel that a supposed cross-platform compatibility solution that fails to integrate with Visual Studio on Windows, and with XCode on OS X is broken by definition (not that I use either of these platforms). I could go on; hope the above helps Dave _______________________________________________ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list