Using static Makefiles is not always KISS. Sometimes it's simpler to
generate Makefile. sh is also available everywhere.
Alex
On Sun, Jul 23, 2017 at 2:10 PM, Hiltjo Posthuma <hiltjo_AT_codemadness.org> wrote:
> On Sun, Jul 23, 2017 at 12:38:59PM +0300, ochern wrote:
>> Thanks for the extended answer. mk looks very close to Make as I have
>> read from the manual. I like Make as it's simple but not in cases when
>> I try to build project consisting from multiple files and libraries
>> with the need to parametrize configuration, take into account
>> different compilers, hosts, targets and dependencies. I can't rely on
>> simple Makefile in this case. But I don't like autogenerated bullshit
>> from Autohell also. What is the reason to invent any new version of
>> Make-like tool when it's possible just to put your old Makefile in
>> Shell here-document and parametrize it using Shell full-grain
>> programming language. Here is an example of 'mkmf' script that
>> generates final Makefile:
>>
>> # --------------------------------
>>
>> . $TOP/build.conf
>>
>> case "$target_os" in
>> gnulinux)
>> SOURCES="$SOURCES linux.c"
>> CFLAGS="-DENABLE_LINUX_FEATURES
>> ;;
>> *)
>> SOURCES="$SOURCES unix.c"
>> ;;
>> esac
>>
>> OBJECTS=`src2obj $SOURCES`
>> PROG=app
>>
>> cat <<EOF >Makefile
>>
>> $PROG: $OBJECTS
>> $CC -o $PROG $OBJECTS
>>
>> o.c.:
>> $CC -c $CFLAGS \$< -o \$_AT_
>>
>> EOF
>>
>> # ----------------------------------
>>
>> It's just a simple example. But it shows that we can put Makefile
>> inside Shell instead of Shell inside Makefile rules. It give full
>> control over the final Makefile using common programming in Shell
>> instead of using freaky GNU Make or else extentions that give very
>> little.
>> Shell is rather standardized and it's not hard to write rather
>> portable script. No I don't say about insane portability as Autoconf
>> tries to provide, though it doesn't work. Instead I think it's wise to
>> support rather modern environments and not care about different old
>> osf1-based systems. 99% of current OSes have Bash that is compatible
>> with POSIX SH. I made scripts that work fine on all linuxes, bsds,
>> macos, solaris, commercial unixes, cygwin, msys. Most problems I had
>> with Solaris sh.
>>
>> According to your schema user must install 9base+rc to be able to
>> build a package, right? It's not simpler than just run './configure;
>> make'.
>>
>> I'm not focusing on another build system but rather rethinking
>> standard usage of Make by substituting it with 'mkmf' shell scripts
>> that wrap Makefile into Shell. This is the core. Every Makefile can be
>> substituted by 'mkmf'. mkmf generates Makefile and runs all other mkmf
>> scripts in subdirs. So by running a toplevel mkmf we generate a
>> hierarchy of makefiles. Additionally we can add toplevel 'configure'
>> to provide simple configuration by command-line parameters like
>> -prefix, -enable-xxx etc. configure runs and generates toplevel
>> build.conf and than runs toplevel mkmf that call all other mkmf
>> scripts recursively. Thus we have a simple and flexible build system.
>>
>> I'd like to read about rc and 9base. Could you give some reference?
>>
>> Alex
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Jul 23, 2017 at 11:36 AM, Anselm R Garbe <garbeam_AT_gmail.com> wrote:
>> > Hi Alex,
>> >
>> > On 23 July 2017 at 09:47, ochern <dexahex_AT_gmail.com> wrote:
>> >> I'm new here and I want to ask if somebody is interested in discussing
>> >> a development of lightweight build system based on simple Shell and
>> >> Make. It would be great to hear the opinions from the community and
>> >> may be there would rise a common welth and opportunity to develop
>> >> suckless build system :)
>> >
>> > Imho an almost suckless build system already exists: mk[0]+9base.
>> >
>> > "Almost" derives from the fact, that 9base or p9p in conjunction with
>> > the popular rc shell is kind of an alien citizen in a regular
>> > Linux/BSD environment, and thus probably not the easiest choice for
>> > gaining straight adoption. Nevertheless, if you dig deeper into all
>> > the problems of GNU vs BSD vs Shitwaris etc. userlands, you will
>> > notice that it becomes a hard task to find a suitable subset in
>> > Makefiles + shell commands that will work almost painfree on most
>> > platforms. sbase+ubase doesn't ease the solution, as they don't nicely
>> > co-exist with GNU or BSD userlands.
>> >
>> > In such situations, relying on mk+9base is an excellent choice, as the
>> > limitations of mk, rc and its native userland are well understood --
>> > and still mk+9base are a lot(!) smaller in code size than bash for
>> > instance.
>> >
>> > For stali development I considered switching to mk, but concluded it
>> > isn't worth the effort as stali can only be built in a Linux
>> > environment anyways.
>> >
>> > To conclude, mk and our just-Makefile based build systems aren't
>> > perfect, but they are extremely suckless in comparison to generated
>> > GNUmakefiles and GNU authell.
>> >
>> > Instead on focussing on yet another build system, I would rather
>> > suggest to focus on a better mail archiver or to work on a nice
>> > bugtracker, that fits well into the mlmmj world of things.
>> >
>> > [0] http://doc.cat-v.org/bell_labs/mk/mk.pdf
>> >
>> > Best regards,
>> > Anselm
>> >
>>
>
> Keep it simple and write portable Makefile's: test it on Linux, *BSD etc.
>
> make is available everywhere.
>
> --
> Kind regards,
> Hiltjo
>
Received on Sun Jul 23 2017 - 13:42:03 CEST