On 10/5/06, Brecht Machiels <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Hello Aaron,
> Now, if you want vim to write makefiles and things for you, that's
> another story. I have a feeling this is what you want - a step to
> integrate "build these files".
No. I was looking into build systems for that. I'm very disappointed by
what's on offer though. I given Boost.build V2 a shot, but it is
over-complex. Or at least the documentation isn't good enough. I also
tried SCons. It seems alot more intuitive. But according to
http://www.gamesfromwithin.com/articles/0509/000100.html it is rather
slow (if that article is to be trusted). Jam is dead, but FTJam seems to
be alive. I think I'll try that next (but first check to see if they
have some decent docs).
While this is a tad offtopic, I will touch on this below.
> Things like Eclipse / Visual Studio
> have a "files listing" which is used to know which files to compile /
> embed / whatever. make does this just fine, and better, IMO, but
> requires you to write a Makefile.
I have written makefiles in the past. However, I'd like to be able to
build my projects on several platforms. From what I hear the autotools
require you to read tons and tons of documentation.
autotools != Makefile
I dislike autotools. I write makefiles by hand. Not Makefile.am
files, but actual Makefiles.
I just used "IDE" to describe what I was thinking of. What I mean
exactly is that I simply want to have all those plugins nicely
integrated with keys mapped to them for easy access. As soon as I got
that (and found a decent build system), I'll be perfectly satisfied :)
Most of these plugins come with a function to toggle/show whatever UI
you want. It's a vimrc one-liner to bind it to a key. i.e. doing
something like this:
http://phraktured.net/screenshots/ss-20060427211348.png
is two keypresses (except the help screen). That screenshot is just
an "omg look at all the crap" screenshot. I actually used it to help
someone further describe what an "IDE" means to them (I get into
conversations like this alot).
As for build systems, there's alot of the integrated into vim. :make
doesn't necessarilly call "make" - it uses makeprg (set via the
'compiler' option). You can use this to easilly expand to whatever
build system you want - there's alot already there and on vim.org.
Now, rant time. A fully "cross platform" build system is a fallacy.
Unless you're unduely smart, you'll run into a problem *somewhere*.
Doing everything "zomgcrossplatform" requires layers and layers of
additional complexity to push things into "common denominator" land.
I prefer, instead, to embrace the differences. As I stated, I like to
write makefiles by hand. I also prefer the OS/host based makefile
concept: Makefile just passing things off to the correct
Makefile.linux or Makefile.solaris or Makefile.mingw. GNU make, or
some version thereof is on most systems anyway - at least more than
bjam or python+scons or perl+cons.
People are scared of Makefiles because of the abomination autotools
have cause them to be. Try writing them by hand without autotools a
few times.
rant over
