Re: [gpsd-dev] Changing build systems

[Bernd Zeimetz]

On 03/25/2015 11:52 AM, Eric S. Raymond wrote:
> Bernd Zeimetz <address@hidden>:
>> Various mails on this list and directly addressed to my show that
>> I'm not the only one who thinks that scons is - in its current state
>> - nothing one wants to use.
> 
> I can see no evidence of this.  You are the only person who has been 
> agitating for a change in build system.

I'm just the one who complains loudly. The others just mail me or message me and
say that I'm not the only one who thinks that scons is not usable in its current
state.


> [...]
> Thus, I have their full attention now.  If you can specifically
> identify the fixes or feature additions that you think scons needs to
> stop annoying you, I think we have a good chance of getting those
> fixed.

For starters:
- Handle versioned shared libraries probably. Know what sonames are and what the
other numbers are used for. https://autotools.io/libtool/version.html has a
description.
- Build shared and static libraries at the same time.
- Handle cross building without having to specify all tools you want to use -
specifying the target architecture should be enough.
- Handle  stuff like importing flags from the environment. We have crap like
for i in ["AR", "ARFLAGS", "CCFLAGS", "CFLAGS", "CC", "CXX", "CXXFLAGS",
"LINKFLAGS", "STRIP", "PKG_CONFIG", "CHRPATH", "LD", "TAR"]:
    if os.environ.has_key(i):
        ....
in SConstruct.
- Build Python modules in a sane way.
- Know about installed files and be able to uninstall them.
- Handle the rpath/chrpath issues in a sane way. WITHOUT chrpath. Re-link files
at install time or use script-wrappers like libtool. Whatever works.
- Have a working distclean.



-- 
 Bernd Zeimetz                            Debian GNU/Linux Developer
 http://bzed.de                                http://www.debian.org
 GPG Fingerprint: ECA1 E3F2 8E11 2432 D485  DD95 EB36 171A 6FF9 435F