Date: Wed, 21 May 1997 21:47:27 -0600 (MDT) From: Wes Peters <softweyr@xmission.com> To: "Jeffrey M. Metcalf" <metcalf@snet.net> Cc: questions@freebsd.org Subject: Q: Development questions on FreeBSD Message-ID: <199705220347.VAA10044@obie.softweyr.ml.org> In-Reply-To: <337F7B25.41C67EA6@snet.net> References: <337F7B25.41C67EA6@snet.net>
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Jeffrey M. Metcalf writes:
> This question may be more suited to a general UNIX development
> newsgroup, but since I would be using FreeBSD, I thought I would
> post here.
Post away; if we don't like it, we'll just flame you. We can't take
away your birthday (yet). ;^)
> I would like to get into some more serious software development on
> FreeBSD, but I need to learn some of the basics.
True, very true. If you want to become a UNIX programmer, get yourself
a copy of "Advanced Programming in the UNIX Environment" by W. Richard
Stevens. Invaluable for his in-depth coverage of how to do things
"the UNIX way."
> For now, I was
> wondering how some of the complex makefiles I see in the FreeBSD
> ports are generated. Does the developer actually do this by hand?
Yup. Why not? It's just another language, and a relatively simple one
at that.
Keep in mind that UNIX applications are often developed in multiple
directories, and are actually built as systems. This drives the DOS and
Windows weenies I've worked with nuts; they'd prefer to see 4300 source
files, 4300 object files, 4300 source backup files, a linker response
file, and the resulting executable all thrown into one directory. Of
course, they wonder why their computer is so slow, too.
> That is, is the developer just an expert in the pseudo-language
> of makefiles? Or is there some king of ascii-based or GUI development
> tool available for UNIX that generates makefiles based on compiling
> options and the like? I would really be surprised if makefile
> generation is done totally by hand, since it seems so mundane and you
> don't really "seem" to learn alot from doing it. It would seem to
> me to almost certainly be a process that can be automated.
In general, you really only build a complicated make system once. After
that, you just keep modifying and expanding that one to cover new
additions to the project. When you move on to the next project, you
carry over the basics of the make system from the previous project and
modify it to support the new one. Often the original is copied from
publicly available sources and modified to fit the project.
> Also, does anyone know of any integrated development environments
> for UNIX (FreeBSD) that would closely approximate some of the
> capabilities of the Borland C++ Builder or the Borland Delphi
> development environments? Hopefully these questions are good ones.
Sure. It's called Emacs. Source code editor with syntax highlighting,
integrated build and debugging environments, a binary editor, it has
everything. It also has built-in source code control (when used with
SCCS, RCS, or CVS), a news reader, email, and just about anything else
you can think of. And several things you probably can't, like an
automated Zippy the Pinhead quote generator, an on-line psychotherapist,
and a filter to convert text files to "jive speak." O'Reilly and
Associates publishes a good book on "Learning GNU Emacs," which has an
excellent introduction to programming using Emacs.
--
"Where am I, and what am I doing in this handbasket?"
Wes Peters Softweyr LLC
http://www.xmission.com/~softweyr softweyr@xmission.com
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