Re: handling basic Makefile as domain specific language

Jeremy Tregunna wrote:

> Your only real option is to force a whitespace between the identifier
> and the : to get around Io's use of it (solely for the purposes of the
> objc bridge I might add). Alternatively, you can write an actual parser
> and skip the DSL route.  

I think that's a bit of a pity. I can really see why the DSL section is
included in the book because it is without doubt one of the things that
makes Io fascinating. It'd perhaps be intriguing to see what might be
possible if the definition of an identifier was configurable: something
like the GNU m4 changeword feature. Perhaps just within the scope of
parsing for a doString call.

It's interesting just trying to work out the rules for identifiers. In
the process I've realised that the "call argAt(1) asString" trick I had
tried for getting the list of files without requiring quoting would
fail for files starting with a number or containing a comma.

I've done a lot of experimenting with different make-like tools recently
and the Python/Ruby ones are really let down by needing excessive extra
syntax and other cruft. Io would be a lot better even without being able to
implement a subset of Unix make's syntax.

> On Sunday, 15 April, 2012 at 4:08 PM, Oliver Kiddle wrote:
> > PS. Sorry if you receive this mail twice, I tried to send it shortly
> > after subscribing but it never arrived in the Yahoo group.

I guess there must be a list moderator or something then for my message
to have taken three days.

Thanks for the answer.

Oliver