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 <http://www.cmake.org/HTML/Index.html> > > 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 <http://www.scons.org/> > > 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 <http://code.google.com/p/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. > -- > <a > href="http://www.catb.org/~esr/<http://www.catb.org/%7Eesr/>">Eric > S. Raymond</a> > > 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 > > _______________________________________________ > Wesnoth-dev mailing list > Wesnoth-dev@gna.org > https://mail.gna.org/listinfo/wesnoth-dev >
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