DIP11

[Nick Sabalausky]

"Nick Sabalausky" <a at a.a> wrote in message 
news:j219ck$3i0$1 at digitalmars.com...
> "Steven Schveighoffer" <schveiguy at yahoo.com> wrote in message 
> news:op.vz166yaieav7ka at localhost.localdomain...
>> On Thu, 11 Aug 2011 12:24:48 -0400, Andrew Wiley 
>> <wiley.andrew.j at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> On Thu, Aug 11, 2011 at 5:52 AM, Steven Schveighoffer
>>> <schveiguy at yahoo.com>wrote:
>>>> I think the benefit of this approach over a build tool which wraps the
>>>> compiler is, the compiler already has the information needed for
>>>> dependencies, etc.  To a certain extent, the wrapping build tool has to
>>>> re-implement some of the compiler pieces.
>>>>
>>>
>>> This last bit doesn't really come into play here because you can already 
>>> ask
>>> the compiler to output all that information. and easily use it in a 
>>> separate
>>> program. That much is already done.
>>
>> Yes, but then you have to restart the compiler to figure out what's next. 
>> Let's say a source file needs a.d, and a.d needs b.d, and both a.d and 
>> b.d are on the network. You potentially need to run the compiler 3 times 
>> just to make sure you have all the files, then run it a fourth time to 
>> compile.
>>
>
> That's *only* true if you go along with DIP11's misguided file-oriented 
> approach. With a real package manager, none of that is needed. Your app 
> just says "I need packages X, Y and Z."
> And X, Y and Z do the same for their requirements. This is all trivial 
> metadata. Emphasis on *trivial*. So, before DMD is ever invoked at all, 
> before one line of the source is ever even read, the package manager has 
> make sure that *everything* is *already* right there. No need to go off on 
> some goofy half-cocked "compile/download/complile/download" dance.
>
> So DMD *never* needs to be invoked more than twice. Once to get the deps, 
> once to compile. Better yet, if DMD gets the 
> switch --compile-everything-dammit-not-just-the-explicit-files-from-the-command-line, 
> then DMD never needs to be invoked more than *once*: Once to figure out 
> the deps *while* being intelligent enough to actually compile all of them.
>
>> And there is no parsing of the output data,
>
> Parsing the .deps file is extremely simple. RDMD does it with one regex. 
> Personally, I think even that is overkill.
>
> Better yet, with a switch to make DMD incorporate RDMD's --build-only 
> functionality, there is *still* no parsing of output data.
>
> So all in all, there is *nothing* that DIP11 does that can't be done 
> *better* by other (more typical) means.
>

In other words, DIP11 just reinvents the wheel, poorly.