From owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Nov 3 11:27:58 2003 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E2F9816A4CE for ; Mon, 3 Nov 2003 11:27:58 -0800 (PST) Received: from razorbill.mail.pas.earthlink.net (razorbill.mail.pas.earthlink.net [207.217.121.248]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 37C3843FB1 for ; Mon, 3 Nov 2003 11:27:58 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from tlambert2@mindspring.com) Received: from user-38ldvdb.dialup.mindspring.com ([209.86.253.171] helo=mindspring.com) by razorbill.mail.pas.earthlink.net with asmtp (SSLv3:RC4-MD5:128) (Exim 3.33 #1) id 1AGkMm-0006JP-00; Mon, 03 Nov 2003 11:27:57 -0800 Message-ID: <3FA6AC4D.81024BD4@mindspring.com> Date: Mon, 03 Nov 2003 11:28:13 -0800 From: Terry Lambert X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.79 [en] (Win98; U) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Timothy Beyer References: <20031102010136.44997855.beyert@cs.ucr.edu> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-ELNK-Trace: b1a02af9316fbb217a47c185c03b154d40683398e744b8a4c7b4dd99142209eaf3c4e270d8553bf3667c3043c0873f7e350badd9bab72f9c350badd9bab72f9c cc: chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: which make in freebsd? X-BeenThere: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Non technical items related to the community List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 03 Nov 2003 19:27:59 -0000 Timothy Beyer wrote: > Hi, I was curious, which of the dozens of make programs does FreeBSD use? Internally, just "make" (BSD make). In X11, imake, xmkmf, etc.. In ports, it varies; sometimes make, sometimes GNU make, etc.. > So far I'm guessing that its imake or pmake, but is it something else? Is there > really a generic bsd 'make' program? Yes. Yes. > On another note, what make do you (as in everyone on the list) prefer, and > why? BSD make. You can .include rules, so your Makefile's end up being only a few lines, instead of being large. > I've heard lots of people complain that XFree doesn't use gmake, but I just > don't see whats wrong with imake... Of course, all the people who were > complaining were Linux users, but this made me curious if there are really > some distinguishing features of the gmake that set it above the rest... Or > were they just biased? They're not just biased; mostly, they are idiots. 8-). The reason for this is that imake encapsulates the dependencies properly, and the code is portable, whereas GNU make/automake/configure/etc. put the onus on the software. Over time, programs that use these tools to build become less and less portable. So using these programs is a form of Linux advocacy. For a while, Amancio Hasty "rode herd" on several projects that kept becoming non-portable to FreeBSD because of Linux advocacates adding code that would not compile on any platform but Linux. The imake program uses platform feature tests, and then compiles the code with feature declaration macrois in scope, so the code remains portable. -- Terry