RE: [FR-devel] RuBuild & FreeRIDE

[Bob Calco]

My two cents on the Rubuild thing...

1. It would be cool,
2. but it isn't necessary.

What is necessary for FreeRIDE is a decent wrapper around MAKE and NMAKE,
including the ability to:

        a. invoke both of them with any and all options and option combinations
appropriate for each, and

        b. flexibly generate build scripts compatible with either/both

I have considerable experience doing precisely this with NMAKE, since I used
it in a professional developement environment I built at work for unit
testing. I volunteer to do this part if no one else wants to. It will be a
plug-in per the databus and freebase thing Rich has built.

Replacing the build engine altogether is a lot more challenging, and a lot
less rewarding, considering the end goal is merely the ability to build
projects. Both MAKE and NMAKE are industrial-strength, well tested, fully
functional, and UBIQUITOUS build management applications that can do this
better than anything we come up with in the short run to replace them.
What's next, a cross platform C compiler written in Ruby for FreeRIDE?

Seriously, let's focus on INTEGRATING the tools underneath our INTEGRATED
development environment. We'll be happier at the end of the day because the
end of the day will be a lot sooner for narrowing the scope to something
more attainable and consistent with the problem domain.

Unless I am mistaken, our problem domain is to write an environment that
integrates existing tools in a manner conducive to high-productivity Ruby
development. Writing a build management tool just because we can is
something we should do when we have the luxury of a bunch of users demanding
it of us.

(No, I'm really not a curmudgeon, but as a software engineer, I hesitate to
do things like reinvent wheels. I'd rather build the first of something that
does not exist than "yet another" of something that already does... but
that's just me. I do respect folks who are still facinated with building
wheels, though...)

:)

Sincerely,

Bob Calco

% -----Original Message-----
% From: address@hidden
% [mailto:address@hidden Behalf Of Curt
% Hibbs
% Sent: Friday, February 08, 2002 3:23 PM
% To: address@hidden
% Cc: Freeride-Devel
% Subject: [FR-devel] RuBuild & FreeRIDE
%
%
% Christian Boos wrote:
% > > How about the discussion about a 'make'
% > > replacement that was big here a few months back?  Same story,
% > > if we had a
% > > viable make replacement that was Ruby based it would help spread Ruby.
% >
% > I'm working on it (Rubuild), but so far, it has not "crystallized".
% > Expect an alpha version by the end of the month (maybe :)
%
% Would you be willing to consider implementing RuBuild (or a wrapper of
% RuBuild) as a plugin component for the FreeRIDE development environment?
%
% The FreeRIDE is a project just got off the ground last month and aims pro
% produce a cross-platform, internationalized IDE for Ruby
% development. And we
% will need something along the lines of RuBuild for our deployment
% component.
%
% Check out our project wiki at
http://www.rubyide.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl and see
what you think.

Curt


_______________________________________________
Freeride-devel mailing list
address@hidden
http://mail.freesoftware.fsf.org/mailman/listinfo/freeride-devel