Re: General purpose build tools (was: Re: how to tell gnatmake to send executables to a different directory when compiling multi source?)

["Vasiliy Molostov" <molostoff@gmail.com>]

Ludovic Brenta <ludovic@ludovic-brenta.org> писал(а) в своём письме Mon,  
30 Jul 2012 15:10:27 +0400:

>>> [1]: http://omake.metaprl.org/index.html
>>> [2]: http://makepp.sourceforge.net/
>>> [3]: http://www.scons.org/
>>
>> Good set of links, the question is why these are not so widely used in
>> comparison to simple make?
>
> make is anything but simple.

In general it is the same as any other tool like awk. It is still possible  
to use it for large project but
the fact is that the convenience  of that build system is held entirely on  
implementer/developer's conscience.

> The reasons why the better tools are not used more widely are the same
> as the reasons why the better languages are not used more widely:
>
> - inertia.
> - ignorance.
> - lemming mentality.

The answer here is the cost of the effort. Experienced people does not  
insist on rewriting makefiles since
they get what they awaiting from it, and nothing more, rewriting lead to  
expense of developer attention and its time,
and possibly involves new bugs and mistakes, those can issue in more time  
and attention expense and
which spending is not the goal of the development, in most cases.

> Sometimes inertia is a valid reason; it does not always make sense to
> rewrite massive makefiles, even when they are recursive and bug-ridden,
> because effort is better spent in other areas.  One example of this is
> GCC.

I name it conservative approach. No place for vogue rave in this field.

And consider, that it is not a devil. Warrior spelling against devils - it  
is not the face of Ada approach,
since such spelling is a way to hide own eyes, while existing things  
indeed just need attention more than we want to pay.

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