cies
10/30/2006 1:54:00 AM
so conclusion:
shipping rake.rb with the ruby source, and using it rake as build
system. this would force us to ship ready made scripts for building
miniruby first (to bootstrap in case no ruby is found on the machine)
-- so rake can be executed using miniruby.
pro's:
- ditch autoconf and make (and the problems they come with)
- more self contained
- probably easier to maintain
con's:
- we "need us to ship ready made scripts for building miniruby", how
to make these?
- we have to change (something that is not really broken); i don't
know if it counts as a con ;-)
On 10/30/06, David Vallner <david@vallner.net> wrote:
> M. Edward (Ed) Borasky wrote:
> > David Vallner wrote:
> >> Selfhosting is a nice exercise in brain self-surgery, but I think it's
> >> more practical to bootstrap using an external environment that's most
> >> likely to be present. I'm not sure I'd like the ruby build process to
> >> take too much time building a bloated miniruby just to build itself
> >> again for no practical benefit whatsoever.
> >>
> >> David Vallner
> >
> > Yeah, but ... "an external environment that's most likely to be present"
> > translates to "GNU/Linux/gcc", doesn't it? Which means MacOS and Windows
> > lag. A bootstrap using an existing "Pure Ruby" (Ruby plus Rake plus
> > RubyGems, etc.) makes a lot more sense.
> >
>
> Short of implementing a C compiler in Ruby (I give it a month or two
> before someone announces a 0.0.1 version of that), those requirements
> aren't going away - you still have to shell out to a C compiler, which
> is by far where most build system porting problems lurk (compiler switch
> semantics, different shell escaping, directory names with spaces innem.)
>
> I guess the original poster's point was porting the build environment to
> Ruby, which, while removing a dependency some people don't have (A POSIX
> build environment), would introduce a dependency most people that want a
> ruby interpreter don't have (a ruby interpreter).
>
> You'd need -some- form or Ruby to bootstrap (a precompiled miniruby
> perhaps), and if you're geek enough to want a self-built Ruby on
> non-POSIX platforms (e.g. Windows), getting a POSIX environment can't be
> that hard. (I trust you don't need any hints on that.)
>
> Moving to rake instead of make might be of benefit though if it lets you
> get rid of some spaces-in-pathnames woes. (Since you don't have a string
> evaluated by a shell at umpty barely predictable spots, something for
> which I'd like to stab people responsible for Unix shells into
> vulnerable places with plastic forks many times.) But it's still not
> going all away yet, e.g. the autotools remain. I just don't see a full
> rewrite both coming anytime soon, and since I doubt one would be doable
> without more or less a full Ruby install, I don't see much benefit as
> opposed to just going as far as you can push the (presumably trivial to
> build) miniruby.
>
> David Vallner
>
>
>
>
--
"Computer games don't affect kids; I mean if Pac-Man affected us as
kids, we'd all be running around in darkened rooms, munching magic
pills and listening to repetitive electronic music." -- Kristian
Wilson (Nintendo, Inc), 1989