On 7/14/11 3:00 PM, Jacob Carlborg wrote:
On 2011-07-14 04:37, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
On 7/13/11 5:32 PM, Ulrik Mikaelsson wrote:
Not trying to be argumentative, but what exactly do you see as the
gains in having a D-buildtool built in D (or D-specific build-tool in
any language, for that matter)?
I think it's a matter of positioning D and eating one's dogfood. If D is
inconceivable for the kind of tasks that Python or Ruby are adept at,
then sure, we could and should use either. On the other hand, if we
advocate D as a good tool for short scripts, using the competition would
hurt its brand.
Personally I believe D is plenty adequate for short scripts, of which
I've written a ton of. So the path of least resistance for a package
manager or for a build tool is D, not any other language. I'd question
much harder the decision of using another language (D is, however, not a
competitor for the likes of bash or make).
Isn't it a competitor for make in this case?
What I meant here is that it's reasonable for a build tool for D to
require make without impacting its brand.
I see no NIH here. D is an ample language scaling up to large programs
and down to scripts. If the question is to build a tool from scratch, D
is the obvious choice and any other choice is just odd. It's like some
tools I've seen (none successful) that required the competition's
product to be installed in order to work.
Andrei
I though we were talking about what language the build scripts should
use, not the language the actual build tool should be written in. I
think these are two separate issues and all tools mentioned (Drake,
Orbit, Dake) in this thread are implemented in D.
My tools, using Ruby as the scripting language, have Ruby embedded in
the tool and requires no installation of Ruby.
I believe use of Ruby for scripting is a strategic mistake for a small
benefit. The users your tools should not need to learn any amount of
Ruby (or Scala for that matter) in order to build D programs. What we
need is, if necessary, to improve D to better address the needs for
scripting a build tool. That way your work would be pushing D's state of
the art in addition to adding value on its own. I suggest you reconsider.
Thanks,
Andrei
