[Gambas-devel] gbmake. A drop-in replacement to automake

[Benoît Minisini]

Le 05/09/2012 13:43, Benoît Minisini a écrit :
> Le 05/09/2012 05:02, Sebastian Kulesz a écrit :
>> Hi all !!
>>
>> I really think Gambas is a great language to work with, but lets face
>> it, from the point of view of a beginner, distributing an application
>> is a pain in the a**. There is no *standard* way to build a project
>> (other than executing gbc3/gba3 directly if we let the IDE aside),
>> this makes it difficult to create debian packages, PPAs, etc. as they
>> all require some sort of autoconf script to manage the process.
>> Without the IDE, an user can do much. And with it, this implies
>> installing every component it depends on (a total of 15).
>>
>> To create a PPA of a gambas application, for example, the user has 2
>> choices. He can either write a Makefile (more bugs, no portability,
>> etc) or create a dummy autoconf package, skim the files and replace
>> what is needed (package name, version, etc), and merge it with his
>> project.
>>
>> These are really just a few examples of the problems i faced not so
>> long ago. With this in mind, i created this little tool to automate
>> the building of gambas apps. It works as a *drop in* replacement for
>> make (*seriously*, you can run "make", "make clean", and "sudo make
>> install" without a single script, autoconf, automake, m4 macro).
>>
>> I also wrote the app with Quickly [0] in mind. For example, if you
>> want to debianize a project, you can run "gbmake debianize" or just
>> "make debianize" and that is it. It will automatically create a
>> skeleton debian/ folder which should work out-of-the-box. Maybe a
>> "make source" to create a source archive?
>>
>> I just started it today, so only the building process is really
>> implemented (build, clean, install) but I really see a lot of
>> potential here. Once it's completed, the autotools package may be
>> dropped (it will be completely replaced and the user will have to do
>> nothing). Uploading packages to a PPA will be much easier. Users won't
>> depend on the IDE to perform administrative tasks, such as building a
>> package or a source archive.
>>
>> I will need some help to port the packaging code in the IDE to work in
>> headless mode. I'm trying to make this tool to only depend on the
>> interpreter, so no single component has to be installed for it to
>> work. This means implementing a custom option parser, and settings
>> parser. I have zero knowledge of Slackware, OpenSUSE, Mandriva, Mageia
>> and Fedora (and it's derivatives), so i will only be able to port the
>> code, but i can't test for any bugs or regressions.
>>
>> How does it works? It's really simple actually. You will see 2
>> Makefiles included. the one named Makefile.1 should be used to install
>> the app in the first place.
>>
>> sudo make -f Makefile.1 install
>>
>> This command will build the project and install it (/usr/bin/gbmake).
>> The second Makefile only wraps the commands sent to "make" to
>> "gbmake". It's really the same, but we are all used to type make *,
>> aren't we? ;-)
>>
>> In this case, only adding this Makefile to a project will let "make"
>> work out of the box, otherwise, "gbmake" will work just fine.
>>
>> I will try to have the Debian part finished by the end of the week so
>> i can provide a working example, this is just a *proof of concept*,
>> and a call for everybody who would like to help. I'm a little skeptic
>> about merging this to trunk (even as a branch), as it's a work in
>> progress, and it will just confuse the users. Besides, 3.3 is around
>> the corner and this will only bring more bugs. Maybe 3.4 if we hurry.
>>
>> I'm really anxious to hear your comments!
>>
>> Thanks!
>>
>> [0] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Quickly
>>
>
> Good idea, but the problem is code duplication between "gbmake" and the IDE.
>
> I suggest taking the code from the IDE instead of rewriting your own (or
> mix them if yours is better).
>

Yep. You tried to rewrite things already done by the IDE, but you didn't 
do it correctly.

You should make a list of all project management features you need (how 
to clean a project, how to compile it...), and I will centralize all 
these features into an IDE module that will be able to be shared by the 
gambas make utility.

Regards,

-- 
Benoît Minisini