On Wed, Jun 25, 2014 at 12:38:01PM -0500, M Farkas-Dyck wrote:
> On 25/06/2014, Sylvain BERTRAND <sylware_AT_legeek.net> wrote:
> > What I mean: it's totally suckless to write more LOC if it
> > reduces the technical cost of the overall software stack (SDKs
> > included!).
> >
> > In the reality, each case is different, and people won't draw
> > their line in the same place. The important thing is not to
> > overshadow the global technical cost.
>
> Now, I can't honestly claim to write for all the suckless community.
> But I shall write for myself at least.
>
> Computers are meant to do tedious work for us. That includes us who
> program them. The appropriate metric of code quality, ergo, is how
> much easier it makes one's life. To this end, mental costs trump
> technical costs by far.
>
> A reusable component with well-specified interfaces makes my life much
> easier, for I need not reimplementate that functionality each time I
> need it, and it works uniformly across all usage sites, which means
> less to remember. Even if it takes more computer time, to a point I
> care not, for computer time is cheap and my time is costly.
>
> Make is such a component. I needn't care how many files I need to
> build; I just write a makefile and it does so.
>
> You clearly deem a shell an acceptable technical cost, tho itself not
> a simple program. C compilers and OS kernels are yet other technical
> costs. I use all these programs as they give me a uniform common
> interface to launching and connecting programs, machine code
> generation for various architectures, and the machine itself.
>
> Losses arise when components cause more grief than they're worth. Make
> itself is easy to build and use. GNU autoshit ain't; its mental costs
> due to nonuniform interfaces and other faults are too great.
Hi,
You write like I was not recommending the use of makefile in any
context. You may have misunderstood me. It's expected when you look at
the mess which is that part of this thread, then my guess is your are
not ill intended.
Actually, the context was specific. The context was small SDKs.
Those you usually find in suckless-ish projects.
Of course, I would use makefiles for SDKs where a full build is
annoyingly "too long" for the coding cycle.
Frign even brought the attention of the readers to one of my
makefile trying to throw discredit on what I said using my
makefile coding style (that very coding style I explained in the
follow-up message).
:)
But for the GNU autosh*t... we all agree... this is one of the
worst and kludgiest SDK systems out there... a definitive nono.
regards,
--
Sylvain
Received on Wed Jun 25 2014 - 20:17:02 CEST