On Dec 16, 2005, at 4:53 PM, Tim Blechmann wrote:
This is exactly the reason why I am unwilling to work on pd-devel. I have spent far too long on build systems and creating cross-platform packages that actually work. I have yet to see a downloadable binary that works for pd-devel since I stopped doing it at devel_0_37. I have zero interest in applying my knowledge when all I get in return is hostility. But its all free software, so feel free to do so yourself.
i can't follow this point ... it's perfectly possible to write a script in your favorite scripting language that downloads external sources decompresses and installs them (maybe not asiosdk, since it's proprietary)...
Sure, I've done that, checkout scripts/checkout-developer-layout.sh. But that does not help one bit when deciding _which version_ of portaudio to download, there is no released version of 19. I suppose you could add the date tag to the script, but then you are building a code management system from scratch. And that makes no sense to me when we are already using CVS, which is far better code management software than any script that any of us are going to write.
scons e.g. offers the possibility to download sources directly from a cvs / svn / bitkeeper repository ... if you want to implement a 1-click solution, this would be the easiest way to go ... but i know, you dislike scons, it's possible to do that in each other scripting language ... possibly you can even implement this with pd ...
I have no problem with scons. But I have never written a conf file for scons, or used python for that matter, so I can't say a lot. I think that is the case for the large majority of the Pd developers. My first impression of scons is that its much slower than configure/make, probably because it does a lot of stuff automatically. From my perspective, this really sucks when having to tweak the Pd-extended build on three different computers.
In a fresh CVS checkout of 0.38.4, autoconf && ./configure && make took a total of 34 seconds.
In a fresh CVS checkotu of pd devel_0_38, after waiting 14 minutes, 8 seconds, I got this:
src/t_main.c:18:16: tk.h: No such file or directory src/t_main.c:38: error: syntax error before '*' token src/t_main.c: In function `main': src/t_main.c:59: error: `Tcl_AppInit' undeclared (first use in this function) src/t_main.c:59: error: (Each undeclared identifier is reported only once src/t_main.c:59: error: for each function it appears in.) src/t_main.c: At top level: src/t_main.c:86: error: syntax error before "Tcl_Interp" src/t_main.c:86: warning: data definition has no type or storage class src/t_main.c:87: error: syntax error before '{' token src/t_main.c:99: warning: parameter names (without types) in function declaration src/t_main.c:99: error: conflicting types for `pdgui_startup' src/t_main.c:38: error: previous declaration of `pdgui_startup' src/t_main.c:99: warning: data definition has no type or storage class src/t_main.c:112: error: syntax error before "return" scons: *** [src/t_main.o] Error 1 scons: building terminated because of errors.
Make is old and a bit whacked, that I know, but it works everywhere, basically any C developer can open up a Makefile and parse it. For the most part, its just lines you'd type into the shell. Make is also been around a long time and the bugs have long since been worked out. Plus there is decades of documentation, group and list posts, examples, etc. to learn from. scons is at version 0.96, and they are still catching critical bugs.
scons sounds promising, I hope it gets better, and it probably handles complicated builds better than make. But Pd really should not be complicated to build. The complications are almost all because everyone wants to do everything their own way. I encourage everyone to experiment with things like scons, svn, or whatever you want to. But I propose we keep Pd a place to experiment with sound processing, media, realtime systems, etc.
Then when the critical bugs are ironed out with scons, and its progressed passed 1.0, and people have written nice Makefile conversion scripts, it could be worth the effort of all 40+ of us relearning a new build system, and many of us learning a new language to boot.
.hc
t
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