[dmd-beta] D 2.062 beta

[Walter Bright]

On 2/10/2013 4:18 PM, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
> On 2/10/13 2:37 PM, Walter Bright wrote:
>> These things make me nervous - they are complex and when they go wrong
>> it can be baffling. Is it really a problem to have the user simply edit
>> the file to match his system?
>
> Not sure how complex the script is, but generally asking users to edit 
> makefiles to match does not scale well at all. IMHO there's a sort of goodness 
> hierarchy when it comes to scripting:
>
> 1. one command that does everything, e.g. "./world" or "make world"
>
> 10. one command with arguments, and the exact arguments depend on the system, 
> e.g. "make DMD_HOME=/usr/bin/dmd MODEL=64"
>
> 100. asking the user to edit configuration files by hand in order to get 
> things done
>
> 1000. manual with a recipe with steps for getting things done
>
> 10000. folklore on how to get things done
>
> There's a big drop in automation from one level to the next, and in particular 
> there's a surprising drop from the command to the command with specific 
> parameters.


The general difficulty is one I've had with MS tools from the 1980's: they 
change in unpredictable ways from release to release, and a *lot* of time gets 
wasted trying to deal with multiple versions and the endless calls for help 
about it not working with some random new version. We see this in a smaller way 
with the evolution of Apple's OSX tools - it's constant breakage. Linux tends to 
be pretty stable from year to year.

Instead of being terribly clever about it, having a simple edittable file is at 
least easier to support.