Re: New GObject Introspection tutorial

[Paul Davis <paul linuxaudiosystems com>]

On Mon, Jun 17, 2013 at 6:56 AM, Simon McVittie <simon mcvittie collabora co uk> wrote:

On 14/06/13 23:14, Colin Walters wrote:
> Not that waf is bad exactly

It's perhaps worth pointing out that waf is pretty awkward for
distributions with a strong commitment to "ship source code for
everything, build everything from its actual source, and avoid
duplication": <https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/02/msg00714.html>

you need to stop thinking of waf as a system-wide build tool, but rather a tool kit that allows developers to avoid the endless hell of autotools version consistency. there was NEVER any intent that waf be installed system wide, but rather that it be part of a given build "target" and present within the source code, thus removing the requirement for every developer to ensure that they have the same version(s) of every part of the autotools stack. i can't count the number of times i've run into problems with trying to hack on projects that use autotools caused by the original developer(s) using a different version of the autotools stack than the one i currently have installed. waf completely, totally, utterly circumvents this problem.

my understanding of the "avoid duplication" goal is that it relates to what gets installed on the target system. waf is not part of the install target for any system it is used to build. there is no duplication (in this sense).  removing the interdependencies between projects ("OMFG, foo wants autotools N.M and bar wants autotools X.Y") is an incredibly sensible thing to do, even if waf is not your preferred choice in terms of how to do it.