Re: [Wesnoth-dev] Choosing a new build system

[Jens Seidel]

On Wed, Jan 23, 2008 at 06:17:49PM -0500, Eric S. Raymond wrote:
> It is probably not newws to anyone on this list that autotools has
> turned into more trouble than it is really worth.  I am pretty expert
> with it based on many years of experience, but I reached my personal
> limit recently while attempting to fix bug #8635. 

Mmh, I like autotools. It is very portable and once you understand the
basics you can easily extent it by using ordinary shell code.

Do not have other build systems to solve the same problems:
 which library to use for linking
 which default compiler flags
 ...

There exist many build systems which just hardcode these information
(last time I checked, Qt's qmake or tmake was one example) and are that's
why useless.
 
> There are only two people on the Wesnoth project who understand our
> autotools-based build machinery at all well.  The other besides myself

All others are free to learn it. I really wonder why it isn't probably used
by Wesnoth people a lot on non-Unix systems. At least adding new files
to Makefile.am's is trivial but IIRC didn't always happen.

> is Isaac de Clerencia, who is mostly inactive these days.  Notably,
> our release manager *doesn't* really grok our build machinery.  This
> adds up to a significant maintainance vulnerability.

I'm always willing to help once I know about problems. I provided e.g.
a minor patch (or better: just a reference) to integrate Boost.

Don't forget that autotools are much easier to use (but probably not to
write) because 

./configure
make
make install

are very common steps.
 
> Ivanovic and I have agreed it's time to find a better build system.

Maybe it would be an option to just keep autotools and Makefile.am's even
after changing to another system? You can mark support for it as
deprecated but just support applying patches?

Don't forget that autotools is a well known standard. I also like it
just "for playing around" and learn it ...

I'm curious: How many people do you expect to become familiar with a new
system?

Jens 

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Re: [Wesnoth-dev] Odp: Choosing a new build system

[Nils Kneuper]

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Eric S. Raymond schrieb:
> Piotr Cychowski <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
>>  Wrestling 
>> with windows ports of libraries we use is painful enough without adding 
>> another layer of things that might go wrong, might be incompatible with 
>> something or just be plain to heavy for some setups.
> 
> You should be far more frightened of cmake, then.  Its C code is a *great*
> deal more complex and heavyweight than both scons and WAF put together;
> I can tell that just by looking at the feature lists.

Though cmake is *very* cross platform. From some fellow students I do know that
it works nicely together with windows and osx since it does basically just
create the project files for the various IDEs (i think currently at least
Makefiles, Visual Studio, XCode, KDevelop and Eclipse are supported, probably
even more. The comments I did hear from other students is that it would be
*very* simple to use. And I think the windows side of cmake is no problem since
there are binaries for it... ;)

But I would recommend to wait until after FOSDEM with starting the switch, at
FOSDEM I will have listen to the talks about scons and about cmake, maybe they
have some valid input. And of course this stuff will not be added to trunk
before 1.4 is branched off (that is 1.4.0 is released). Before we could either
work in a branch, or just check with which one to go.

Cheers,
Nils Kneuper aka Ivanovic
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Re: [Wesnoth-dev] Odp: Choosing a new build system

[Eric S. Raymond]

Piotr Cychowski <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> As a totaly unrepresentative voice of Windows-using minority, after 
> reading above, I'd go for WAF. I do appreciate that scons might be more 
> stable, but I would not want to bring python into the process.

Um, WAF is also implemented in Python.

>  Wrestling 
> with windows ports of libraries we use is painful enough without adding 
> another layer of things that might go wrong, might be incompatible with 
> something or just be plain to heavy for some setups.

You should be far more frightened of cmake, then.  Its C code is a *great*
deal more complex and heavyweight than both scons and WAF put together;
I can tell that just by looking at the feature lists.
-- 
http://www.catb.org/~esr/";>Eric S. Raymond

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[Wesnoth-dev] Odp: Choosing a new build system

[Piotr Cychowski]

As a totaly unrepresentative voice of Windows-using minority, after 
reading above, I'd go for WAF. I do appreciate that scons might be more 
stable, but I would not want to bring python into the process. Wrestling 
with windows ports of libraries we use is painful enough without adding 
another layer of things that might go wrong, might be incompatible with 
something or just be plain to heavy for some setups.


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Re: [Wesnoth-dev] Choosing a new build system

[jeremy rosen]

great idea, though I would advise waiting for the 1.5 branch before doing
any thing (probably stating the obvious here)

I am all for changing the build system, but I have no experience with
alternatives => no usefull input

On Jan 24, 2008 12:17 AM, Eric S. Raymond <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> It is probably not newws to anyone on this list that autotools has
> turned into more trouble than it is really worth.  I am pretty expert
> with it based on many years of experience, but I reached my personal
> limit recently while attempting to fix bug #8635.
>
> There are only two people on the Wesnoth project who understand our
> autotools-based build machinery at all well.  The other besides myself
> is Isaac de Clerencia, who is mostly inactive these days.  Notably,
> our release manager *doesn't* really grok our build machinery.  This
> adds up to a significant maintainance vulnerability.
>
> Ivanovic and I have agreed it's time to find a better build system.
> Fortunately, the problems with autotools have been building for long
> enough that alternatives have begun appearing, and some are relatively
> mature.
>
> Ivanovic and I began our search knowing of cmake and scons.  In an
> email conversation with a GNOME developer we've had WAF recommended to
> us as potentially better than either.  I've since been reading about
> all three.  Here are my evaluations based on the documentation:
>
> cmake 
>
> Pros: Relatively mature, well supported, well documented, strong
> cross-platform support.  Probably a lot fewer sharp edges and
> broken bits than autotools.
>
> Cons: Ugly and heavyweight. The most like autotools of the three and
> that's *not* a compliment -- I'm not sure we'd gain a whole lot
> in simplicity from cmake.
>
> The design style of this tool makes me uneasy.  I have no doubt that
> it works well within the limits the designers anticipated, but I have
> a suspicion it will be brittle and difficult if pushed even slightly past
> them.
>
> scons 
>
> Pros: Simpler than cmake.  More readily extensible -- it's written in
> Python and the build recipes are declarations in a dialect
> of Python.  Runs on Windows as well as Unixes.
>
> Cons: None I can see, except maybe that it's somewhat more complex
> than WAF.
>
> WAF 
>
> Pros: All the advantages of scons.  Very small and lightweight.  One
> script, no installation; you drop a copy in your project directory,
> write a handful of declarations in wscript files, and go.  Recommended
> to us by a GNOME dev with both cmake and scons experience.
>
> Cons: Documentation is poor.  Relatively new project, small dev team.
>
> I'd like to say we should go with WAF -- the lightness of the design
> appeals to me, and we've had it recommended.  However, having read
> both sets of documentation, I think it would be more prudent to go
> with scons.
>
> Comments welcome, especially from anyone with experience of these tools.
> --
> href="http://www.catb.org/~esr/">Eric
> S. Raymond
>
> Certainly one of the chief guarantees of freedom under any government,
> no matter how popular and respected, is the right of the citizens to
> keep and bear arms.  [...] the right of the citizens to bear arms is
> just one guarantee against arbitrary government and one more safeguard
> against a tyranny which now appears remote in America, but which
> historically has proved to be always possible.
>-- Hubert H. Humphrey, 1960
>
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>
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[Wesnoth-dev] Choosing a new build system

[Eric S. Raymond]

It is probably not newws to anyone on this list that autotools has
turned into more trouble than it is really worth.  I am pretty expert
with it based on many years of experience, but I reached my personal
limit recently while attempting to fix bug #8635. 

There are only two people on the Wesnoth project who understand our
autotools-based build machinery at all well.  The other besides myself
is Isaac de Clerencia, who is mostly inactive these days.  Notably,
our release manager *doesn't* really grok our build machinery.  This
adds up to a significant maintainance vulnerability.

Ivanovic and I have agreed it's time to find a better build system.
Fortunately, the problems with autotools have been building for long
enough that alternatives have begun appearing, and some are relatively
mature.  

Ivanovic and I began our search knowing of cmake and scons.  In an
email conversation with a GNOME developer we've had WAF recommended to
us as potentially better than either.  I've since been reading about
all three.  Here are my evaluations based on the documentation:

cmake 

Pros: Relatively mature, well supported, well documented, strong
cross-platform support.  Probably a lot fewer sharp edges and
broken bits than autotools.

Cons: Ugly and heavyweight. The most like autotools of the three and
that's *not* a compliment -- I'm not sure we'd gain a whole lot
in simplicity from cmake.  

The design style of this tool makes me uneasy.  I have no doubt that
it works well within the limits the designers anticipated, but I have
a suspicion it will be brittle and difficult if pushed even slightly past
them.

scons 

Pros: Simpler than cmake.  More readily extensible -- it's written in
Python and the build recipes are declarations in a dialect 
of Python.  Runs on Windows as well as Unixes.

Cons: None I can see, except maybe that it's somewhat more complex
than WAF.

WAF 

Pros: All the advantages of scons.  Very small and lightweight.  One
script, no installation; you drop a copy in your project directory,
write a handful of declarations in wscript files, and go.  Recommended
to us by a GNOME dev with both cmake and scons experience.

Cons: Documentation is poor.  Relatively new project, small dev team.

I'd like to say we should go with WAF -- the lightness of the design
appeals to me, and we've had it recommended.  However, having read
both sets of documentation, I think it would be more prudent to go
with scons.

Comments welcome, especially from anyone with experience of these tools.
-- 
http://www.catb.org/~esr/";>Eric S. Raymond

Certainly one of the chief guarantees of freedom under any government,
no matter how popular and respected, is the right of the citizens to
keep and bear arms.  [...] the right of the citizens to bear arms is
just one guarantee against arbitrary government and one more safeguard
against a tyranny which now appears remote in America, but which
historically has proved to be always possible.
-- Hubert H. Humphrey, 1960

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