Date: Thu, 1 Aug 1996 21:39:30 -0400 (EDT) From: Chuck Robey <chuckr@glue.umd.edu> To: "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@time.cdrom.com> Cc: "David E. O'Brien" <obrien@Nuxi.cs.ucdavis.edu>, FreeBSD Ports <FreeBSD-Ports@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: Sample Makefile Message-ID: <Pine.OSF.3.95.960801213403.22340A-100000@fiber.eng.umd.edu> In-Reply-To: <10174.838948336@time.cdrom.com>
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On Thu, 1 Aug 1996, Jordan K. Hubbard wrote:
> > I didn't want to at first, it's 13K in size, but I guess I will. I've
> > pasted it to the end of this file. If you comment on it, please don't
> > repost the whole thing to the list, but I'd like any comments anyone might
> > have.
>
> Hmmm. That's pretty huge. Erm.. As that most worthy tome, "Science
> Made Stupid", states: "Warty things too big, start over."
>
> [Those unfamilar with SMS will simply have to run right out and buy
> a copy, now won't you?]
>
> I think this Makefile is a convincing argument that the human-readable
> template file approach is a bad idea. What you want instead is a
> template file that's *program* readable, and a program which uses
> libdialog or X or whatever your choice of GUI technology is to prompt
> the user for various things based on which fields it sees as
> "optional", "non-optional" and so on. There would have to be some
> very port-specific assumptions for certain fields, such as the
> *_DEPENDS values which would require that you turn lists like "libz xpm"
> into "Xpm\\.4\\.:${PORTSDIR}/graphics/xpm z\\.1\\.:${PORTSDIR}/devel/libz"
> by searching the INDEX. A little additional stickyness, but nothing
> insoluble. If you design the template file right, I could even see
> a cgi version of the Makefile generator program. :-)
That's why I asked at the beginning if this was the direction. I was
writing a Makefile for a human to read. You're asking for a machine
driven one, essentially useless for a human (one that doesn't know how to
write a ports Makefile from the beginning anyways). It should be obvious
that I wasn't pointing towards that.
Having a template like that is useless without a program generator to
build from, which could ask questions and fill things in. I'm not against
the idea of someone else doing that, but my own opinion is that such a
thing would too radically limit what you could get done in adapting the
software of some _not under your control_ to a FreeBSD environment. I
don't like that direction, so I will step aside on it.
I'm not against someone proving me wrong, it's just my opinion that it's
not the most productive direction to take.
----------------------------+-----------------------------------------------
Chuck Robey | Interests include any kind of voice or data
chuckr@eng.umd.edu | communications topic, C programming, and Unix.
9120 Edmonston Ct #302 |
Greenbelt, MD 20770 | I run Journey2 and n3lxx, both FreeBSD
(301) 220-2114 | version 2.2 current -- and great FUN!
----------------------------+-----------------------------------------------
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