From owner-freebsd-ports Fri Aug 2 04:50:05 1996 Return-Path: owner-ports Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id EAA04017 for ports-outgoing; Fri, 2 Aug 1996 04:50:05 -0700 (PDT) Received: from po2.glue.umd.edu (po2.glue.umd.edu [129.2.128.45]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id EAA04012 for ; Fri, 2 Aug 1996 04:50:03 -0700 (PDT) Received: from skipper.eng.umd.edu (skipper.eng.umd.edu [129.2.103.24]) by po2.glue.umd.edu (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id HAA16147; Fri, 2 Aug 1996 07:50:01 -0400 (EDT) Received: from localhost (chuckr@localhost) by skipper.eng.umd.edu (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id HAA05621; Fri, 2 Aug 1996 07:50:00 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: skipper.eng.umd.edu: chuckr owned process doing -bs Date: Fri, 2 Aug 1996 07:50:00 -0400 (EDT) From: Chuck Robey X-Sender: chuckr@skipper.eng.umd.edu To: "Jordan K. Hubbard" cc: "David E. O'Brien" , FreeBSD Ports Subject: Re: Sample Makefile In-Reply-To: <10600.838958348@time.cdrom.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-ports@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Thu, 1 Aug 1996, Jordan K. Hubbard wrote: > > 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. > > Yes, it was, and I wasn't really sure whether or not the human > Makefile would work as a concept until I saw the size of yours. The > sheer amount of reading one would have to do in order to use it in the > full construction of a port is rather self-defeating if you're trying > to make the process quicker and less knowledge intensive. > > > 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 > > Huh? The ports collection is *all about* adapting software not under > your control to a FreeBSD environment! ;-) Maybe I misunderstood you, but I _think_ you're talking about mechanizing the production of ports, or at least the Makefile, right? The amazing (to me, I'm a fan of bsd.port.mk) flexibility of ports would be limited if a tool tried to get me to make Makefiles by answering questions. I have similarly dim views of most expert systems I've seen or read about. I'm more in favor of educating the humans. That's what you were heading towards, a Makefile that had a spot for everything, and could be filled in using a point/click tool, right? Or did I misread you? > > Jordan > ----------------------------+----------------------------------------------- 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! ----------------------------+-----------------------------------------------