Re: suggestion about build system

Ittay Dror (Freiman) wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I've started to look into smartfrog and ran accross the 
> third_generation_build_process document. I'd like to suggest that you 
> look into Buildr (http://incubator.apache.org/buildr). It is a Java 
> build tool written in Ruby and using Ruby for the build files. The 
> benefits is that the build file is in a real language, allowing greater 
> flexability, that all data structures are accessible (you can query a 
> project directly for its attributes without mucking with properties), 
> that has great support for building multiple modules, that it embraces 
> Maven's repository idioms and that it has a bridge to Ant for whatever 
> task you want.
> 
> Ittay

Hi,

Yes, Buildr is interesting and it is something I ought to spend time 
looking at. The other thing to look at -strangely enough- are source RPM 
and .deb packages, which look like things to install, but really they 
are the source (and an optional patch list) which then get automatically 
compiled on the target machines. You can bring up an entire OS image 
from the source tree, which is almost the ultimate deployment. That 
doesn't mean that these package are nice to work with -they are very 
painful to test- but that for C/C++ open source projects its ideal: you 
give people the source they need, the installer compiles things in sync 
with your platform and every other library.

As we move away from any compile phase, and purely into languages that 
are compiled just before execution, I think you can go further and focus 
entirely on having an automated test cycle -you save things and you flip 
over to the web browser showing you the test results and coverage...


-Steve

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