OT: on IDEs and code writing on steroids

[Daniel Keep]

Robert Fraser wrote:
> Daniel Keep wrote:
>>> rebuild MyProgram
>>
>> I will give you this, though: D's toolchain could use improvement in
>> more complex builds.  But it's still a hell of a lot simpler than
>> anything C#'s toolchain can do.
> 
> Have you tried DSSS? It's surprisingly feature-rich, and its syntax is a
> lot simpler than MSBuild's.

-_-

You realise that in order to be using rebuild, I HAVE to also have DSSS,
right?  I'm pretty sure Gregor stopped releasing rebuild-only packages
quite some time ago.

DSSS itself is OK, but I can't let you get away with saying it's syntax
is simpler than MSBuild's.  Oh sure, it's not XML, but it's just...
inscrutable.

For example, I once had to ditch DSSS for a project because I needed to
add a flag for Windows builds.  Adding that flag killed all the other
flags for all the other builds for some reason, even using the += thing.

The lack of any sort of stable ordering for build steps is a pain, too.
 And it annoys me that I can't specify what a default build should do.

DSSS is weird; even after Gregor wrote all the documentation for it, it
still just didn't make sense.  Maybe it's cursed or something. :P

> IMO, any build more complex than setting a few options should be handled
> by a scripting language, though. Knocking together a Perl script to call
> your builder is often a lot easier than mucking around with huge
> configuration files (anyone who's used Ant can attest).

I do have a build script for one of my projects.  It's fairly large.
The problem is, it's doing what this makefile would accomplish:

%.d: %.dw
  dtangle $@ # I forget the exact syntax

It's always annoyed the crap out of me that we've lost such a basic
transformative tool.

  -- Daniel


P.S.  No, I can't just use make; I'm on Windows.  I really, REALLY don't
want to have to deal with that bullshit again.