From: Ant Sims <antsims9999@...>
Date: 2005-04-05T05:04:54+09:00
Subject: Re: Ruby optimization - re-implement in compiled language?

On Mon, 04 Apr 2005 11:45:51 +0900, Eric Hodel wrote:

> On 03 Apr 2005, at 14:54, Ant Sims wrote:
>> I've been using ruby to implement a make-like build system for my 
>> personal use
> 
> Is there something that Rake doesn't do to fit your needs?
> 
> Or make, for that matter?

Sorry, I probably should have said ... my build process is quite different
to a standard project (lots of preprocessing stages etc) - hence I use a
non-standard build tool. Also, it was kinda an exercise in learning ruby ...

Personally, I reckon make's support for dependency rules that change over
time is a little poor. If rule change during the build then make must be
reinvoked.

make's use of timestamps is annoying, particularly since some of my
source files are served over nfs.  Using GNU make on a Linux ext3
filesystem, this is made worst by the fact that the granularity of file
timestamps is one second. Worse: GNU make thinks two identical
timestamps indicates that a file does not need to be re-built! Build a
file in under a second (e.g. a simple preprocessing script) and is
dependent products won't get updated!

I know there's better systems out there now - Rake, SCons, but I decided
to ditch make a long time ago. Certainly before I was aware of the
alternatives and probably before some of them existed. Now I'm kinda
dependent on all my bizarre build stages :-) 

-- 
Ant Sims 
antsims9999@yahoo.co.uk