buildj - report #3

[Emel Elvin Yildiz <emelelvinyildiz gmail com>]

Hey SoCers,

This is your belated look at the week that was in buildj, the new
build specification for GNOME...

To find out more, check http://live.gnome.org/BuilDj and see my blog,
http://emelelvin.blogspot.com/

The code lives in my 'features' git branch,
http://gitorious.org/buildj/buildj/commits/features awaiting review.

With .pc and .desktop generation looking good, although not totally
complete (see comments), I've taken on a new feature that was actually
planned for slightly later in the outlined schedule: automatically
satisfying build dependencies through the distribution with PackageKit
(http://www.packagekit.org/) using DBus:

    Initial PackageKit dep install support:

    The aim is to support auto-installation of dependencies using
    PackageKit's deb/rpm etc. capabilities, and perhaps later jhbuild too
    for source builds of dependencies.

    Unavailable dependencies are intercepted at configure time, collected
    and installation attempted only if buildj is confident that all
    requirements will be satisfied. Feature currently disabled pending
    further work.

I had a lot of great feedback on my blog and by private mail, and this
one came up quite often. By tackling the problem early on, we have a
better chance of dealing with the issues as we return to the
previously planned schedule outlined in my original proposal. And
because features are fun :-)

Working towards a better build system for your projects,
Emel