Build system (was: SVG format in ...)

[Soeren Sandmann <sandmann daimi au dk>]

Marcin Antczak <marcin antczak e-dev pl> writes:

> Don't you think that Gnome should be _above_ this and have some _own_,
> dedicated, visual (this just should be Gnome application) tool for
> fetching, building, installing, upgradeing?

The GNU autotools could definitely use a replacement, but it would be
wrong to make it gnome specific, because that would just make it more
difficult to build gnome for people who has learned he autotools way
of doing it.

Some things that should be thought about if you want to create a build
system:

        - Ideally, an entire project could be described in one
          file. From this file you should be able to build, install
          and un-install the project.

        - It should not try to replace the packaging systems, because
          that would be hopeless anyway.

        - This file should be machine-editable, so that a graphical
          development environment could generate and edit it.

        - The file needs to be hand-readable and -editable for people
          who don't want or can't use a graphical environment.

        - It should be language independent and support projects that
          uses multiple languages.

        - It needs to be supported by and used in many major
          projects, or it will never go anywhere.

        - It needs to be at least as portable and as feature-rich as
          the GNU autotools, including libtool.

There are more problems, but just these make it clear that creating a
new build-system is a big task with lots of both technical and
political problems.

If you don't know both C and C++ and many other languages, and have a
detailed knowledge of the GNU autotools, you're not qualified to do
it.  I think it would be worthwhile for someone to do it, but I'm not
holding my breath.


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