Re: Oh no, this is definately a shot in the own le

faq
flatforty
contribute
subscribe
configure
search
rdf

main
parent
thread

Re: Oh no, this is definately a shot in the own le
by clee on Wednesday 14/Sep/2005, @05:51

Either you are misinformed, or your distribution has terrible python packages.

My own research on my local system shows:

clee ~ % aptitude show perl autoconf automake1.9 m4 libtool | grep 'Uncompressed Size'
Uncompressed Size: 11.5M
Uncompressed Size: 1507k
Uncompressed Size: 1602k
Uncompressed Size: 348k
Uncompressed Size: 2380k

That's about 16MB for perl, m4, autoconf, automake, and libtool on my system.

clee ~ % aptitude show python2.4 | grep 'Uncompressed Size'
Uncompressed Size: 9191k

So, it's a little over half the size of perl + m4 + autoconf + automake + libtool.

Plus, you claim that the autotools work perfectly on every system ever, except that it's patently untrue; the vast majority of the problems our porters have on MacOS X and Win32 systems are directly because of autotools.

Benjamin Reed, the main developer behind the MacOS X port, said in this message (http://lists.kde.org/?l=kde-core-devel&m=111866452210421&w=2) on the Build system for KDE4 thread (http://lists.kde.org/?t=111863688400002&r=1&w=2):

"Writing tests in scons/etc. is considerably easier than doing it in M4
and shell."

Jaroslaw Staniek, the main developer on the Win32 port, said (http://lists.kde.org/?l=kde-core-devel&m=111866757017220&w=2) in the same thread:

"SCons would be my favourite. Among others, there's one more advantage: with python scripts I wont run off with win32 PIDs on cygwin. For now oferflowing PIDs counter forces me to (sic!) reboot."

So the "BUT THE AUTOTOOLS ARE CROSS-PLATFORM!" argument falls on its face. They're unusable on non-UNIX systems for real projects, especially ones the size of KDE.

There are other serious issues with the autotools, as well, which is the main reason that we're interested in moving away from them. Such reasons include the fact that the autotools make it very difficult (if not impossible) to properly support parallelized builds, and the fact that they are difficult and unintuitive to use, especially "properly". So much so that you have to read "dozens of documents" on them in order to make use of them.... (half of these documents, incidentally, are for obsolete versions, and the behaviours have changed significantly in some aspects depending on the version that you're using.)

So, to sum up:

1) The autotools have serious issues with their "cross-platform" support
2) The autotools lack features we desire, such as easy extensibility and easily parallelizable builds
3) The autotools use a variety of languages, none of which is simple or well-known by the vast majority of our developers.
4) The autotools actually take up *more* space on disk, both in the installed packages required and in the amount of space required for our autotools infrastructure (the 600kb vs 100kb argument)

I look forward to you "crushing my arguments into dust" though. Try to remember to cite actual sources, instead of just using rhetoric.

Related Links

·   Articles on Developer
·   Also by clee
·   Contact author

The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whomever posted them.
( Reply )

Re: Oh no, this is definately a shot in the own le
by kundor on Wednesday 14/Sep/2005, @12:28

I don't have any beef with SCons, but I'm not sure why you included perl in the autotools size measurement? What does perl have to do with anything?

[ Reply To This | View ]

Re: Oh no, this is definately a shot in the own le
by clee on Wednesday 14/Sep/2005, @13:12

Because the autotools require Perl to run, and Perl is bigger than Python.

Try running 'rpm -q --requires autoconf' or 'aptitude show -v autoconf' (depending on which distribution you're on).

[ Reply To This | View ]

The Fine Print: The previous comments are owned by whomever posted them.
( Reply )


		"No fake - I'm a big fan of konqueror, and I use it for everything." -- Linus Torvalds
KDE®, "K Desktop Environment", "KDE Dot News", "got the dot?" and the KDE Logo® are trademarks or registered trademarks of KDE e.V. in the European Union, the United States and other countries. All other trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. Comments are owned by the poster. The rest: Copyright © 2000-2008 KDE e.V. for The KDE Project. For further information or comments on this site, please contact the Webmaster.