[Build-common-hackers] Bug#586859: cdbs: upward compatibility

Kevin Ryde user42 at zip.com.au
Sat Jul 3 01:15:44 UTC 2010


Jonas Smedegaard <dr at jones.dk> writes:
>
> This time around it is too late to "roll back" - the newly named
> perl-makemaker.mk

That's fine.  Just write a couple of words in the manual.  As a bit of a
concrete suggestion: perlmodule.mk and perl-makemaker.mk classes
configure and build an ExtUtils::MakeMaker Makefile.PL dist.  The two
names are the same thing.  perlmodule.mk is the original from when
MakeMaker was the only scheme in wide use.  perl-makemaker.mk is new in
cdbs 0.4.72 of March 2010 and corresponds better to perl-build.mk.

> warning that one of them is discouraged.

Personally I'd keep it fairly neutral, there being only modest
advantages or disadvantages in each.

> I was unable to find a way to
> extend the old perlmodule.mk to cover both Perl build systems in that
> one snippet.

I was going to suggest trying that :), but I suspect anything but a
defaults-only rules file would have trouble.  If someone really wanted a
generic chooser some experimenting with "ifeq" could see how it goes
before trying to promise the world.

> One reason to drop snippets is maintainability.  the tarball.mk and
> patch system snippets are IMO ugly and have been superceded

I used the simple patchsys as I wasn't smart enough to wade through the
nonsense for the four or five patch systems that have been popular over
time!  The simple patchsys was simple :).  I suppose it all may settle
down now and the main archive may move quickly, but I'd expect third
parties to move much slower, out of laziness or just not enough hours in
the day, and esp if having an eye slightly towards backports or users
who aren't on the cutting edge.





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