>>>>> "Bo" == Bo Peng <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
Bo> I can not speak for Peter, so I can only compare scons with Bo> autotools, Bo> Convenience: scons > autotools. Bo> After your first run, which may need some parameters to set qt_dir Bo> etc, all subsequent runs are simple commands like 'scons install'. Bo> No autogen and configure stuff. There is normally no need to rerunning configure, since t is done automatically. autogen.sh s indeed a problem, but I suspect it is our fault and it should work automatically. Bo> Installation: scons > autotools Bo> scons is much easier to install than autotools, and version Bo> compatibility of autotools can be a nightmare. Except that autotools (in unices at least) is already there and there is nothing to install. Note that, since my checking from yesterday) we do not need automake 1.9 anymore and I propose to reduce the needed value to something like 1.5 or 1.6 (have to check). Bo> Reliability: scons > autotools Bo> autotools may fail after successful configure because of Bo> incomplete check. What do you mean? Bo> scons seems to be better. Also, autogen.sh and configure may be Bo> needed from time to time, and you can know that only after make Bo> fails. And there? Bo> Portability: scons > autotools Bo> The same command work for linux, windows (cygwin, mingw, msvc), Bo> solaris, but not tested under mac. Bo> Maintainability: scons > autotools Bo> Python is easier to read/write than m4, and you can use Python to Bo> do all sort of things (regular expression, file system operations Bo> ...) easily. Well, this is in the eye of the beholder. Personally, I can do m4/sh much better than python. Bo> In summary, scons can almost replace autotools, but not now. Note that I am not saying that scons should not replace autotools. The main problem that I have with it actually is that it is not generally available on all unices and that I would be surprised if it worked out of the box on the nonlinux unices. The tweaks that will be necessary to make it work will remind us why autotools make sense :) JMarc
