Response files

[Nick Sabalausky]

"Georg Wrede" <georg.wrede at iki.fi> wrote in message 
news:gq5mp9$2htv$1 at digitalmars.com...
> Nick Sabalausky wrote:
>> ""Jérôme M. Berger"" <jeberger at free.fr> wrote:
>>> Or use a build system that abstracts all the differences for you. I
>>> use SCons all the time to write software that works on both Linux
>>> and Windows and I have none of the problems you describe:
>>> - SCons is released for both Linux and Windows (and MacOS) and is
>>> the same on all platforms;
>>> - All my file names are in lower case, ever (this has nothing to do
>>> with the make tool btw);
>>> - SCons uses '/' as the path delimiter everywhere and translates
>>> them appropriately;
>>> - In SCons, you only specify the core file name and SCons adds the
>>> required prefix and suffix (eg object => object.o/object.obj,
>>> program => program/program.exe, library => liblibrary.a/library.lib);
>>> - Plus SCons is able to do parallel compilations which make isn't
>>> really (the '-j' option is broken on all the make implementations I
>>> know).
>>>
>>> All the complexity and the parametrization is handled internally by
>>> SCons so the "makefiles" are both simple *and* terse ;)
>>
>> Yea, I was going to mention that, too. As far as I'm concerned "*make" is 
>> the same sort of undead unholy relic as C++. Ie, They've served their 
>> use, but these days they're terrible anachronisms that just need to be 
>> allowed to finally die. SCons absolutely *kills* make, and last I looked, 
>> AAP was even better than SCons (IMO). Not to get into an AAP vs SCons 
>> debate or anything, but my point is, with all the stuff out there that's 
>> so much better than *make, there's really not much reason beyond pure 
>> inertia and ignorance of the alternatives to keep holding onto it.
>
> <half jokingly>
> Young people tend to always choose the absolutely best, while older people 
> value stability and longevity of tools.
>
> So, yesterday the best was SCons, today it's AAP, what's it gonna be 
> tomorrow? Old people prefer something like make, that's been around for 
> some time, and which will still be around in the future.
> </>
>
> Yes, it's not /the/ best. But then one doesn't have to learn a new system 
> every six months just "to keep with the best".

Heh, very true. Of course, both sides could learn a bit from the other. 
Sometimes the newest/fanciest/most-popular has loads of drawbacks that the 
kids just don't have the experience to notice, and sometimes those more 
experienced end up blinded to things that may very well be true 
improvements.

My most advanced PC here is a 1.7GHz Celeron. It does what I need it to do, 
and I'm happy with it. Lately I've found myself shaking my head at the 
"young-uns" these days that feed hundreds of dollars into their rigs 
annually just so they can play the latest games sitting at some desk instead 
of a nice comfy living room couch and TV. And then they get into software 
development and wind up inadvertently (or even deliberately) targeting their 
own super-powered systems and wind up creating the world's biggest 
bloatware. (And don't even get me started on iPods, "tricked out" cars and 
the current generation of gaming consoles.)

But as far as *make vs the newer make-replacements, I just got fed up *make 
years ago in very much the same way I got fed up with C++. So I was looking 
for replacements and found the D language as well as SCons and AAP (Ok, so 
technically it's "A-A-P", but dagnabbit, I'm gonna call it "AAP" in just the 
same crotchety way I spell "Haxe" with a lower-case "x" and pronounce it 
"Hacks" instead of "Hex").