«

David Lamb wrote:

> I've always used a combination of Emacs and make. Given your "single
> makefile" question, though, I suspect you may have more sophisticated
> needs than I do. Care to elaborate?

There is nothing sophisticated in my needs. The only reason I mentioned
makefiles is that I'm already familiar with them. I would prefer to develop
a skill which I already have than being forced to start from scratch by
being forced to use another tool.


Rui Maciel

Daniel Pitts wrote:

> Why not use an IDE though? They provide so much!

They also tend to be inferior in a considerable number of aspects,
particularly when compared with the features provided by some text editors.
Between being forced to stick with an IDE and managing the build process by
hand, the latter option sounds a lot better.


Rui Maciel

On 4/23/2012 3:15 PM, Rui Maciel wrote:
>
> Maybe build-in rules aren't needed, considering Make's static pattern rules.
>
> http://www.gnu.org/software/make/man...Static-Pattern
>


That's a good find, and I appreciate you pointing it out to this list.
It's actually been several years since I've dealt with make's build
rules in any way, and a small refresher wouldn't be bad for me.

However, in the Java world, ant is the standard build program. (Or
maven; however I haven't got into maven yet.) There's no way you can
avoid ant. Any project that exists in Java, any deliverable you get
from an outside contractor or firm, will invariably use ant. It is
simply "the standard."

So I'd recommend you learn to use it. First, it avoids fumbling around
making your own static rules, and second you will have to learn it
eventually, regardless. So it might as well be on your own terms, and
on your own schedule.

I found ant's use of XML off-putting at first as well, but it becomes
easier to deal with, and more natural to write, after you've hand
written a couple of basic project definitions. Just go for it, and
don't sweat the new stuff you'll learn.

On 4/23/2012 3:38 PM, Rui Maciel wrote:
> Daniel Pitts wrote:
>
>> Why not use an IDE though? They provide so much!
>
> They also tend to be inferior in a considerable number of aspects,
> particularly when compared with the features provided by some text editors.
> Between being forced to stick with an IDE and managing the build process by
> hand, the latter option sounds a lot better.


Modern IDEs are far superior to any text editor. 10 years ago I was a
vim (actually just vi) fan. No longer. The features provided by modern
IDEs are leaps and bounds beyond what any text editor provides.

If you can show me a text editor that is superior in any significant
regard to my IDE, I'd like to see what those features are, and know
which editor provides them. Productivity is important to me, so if
there's a productivity tool out there that I'm missing, I'd like to know.

(And I'd like actual objective features, please. If this degenerates
into trolling editor wars... well, you'll know when I start ignoring
your posts. "Don't feed the trolls.")

Rui Maciel wrote:
> Robert Klemme wrote:
>
>> Nasser M. Abbasi wrote:
>>> I found that using one good tool for everything is better than
>>> mixing things.
>>
>> Which, if followed religiously, will lead you into a situation where it
>> can get really awkward to do things with tool A which would be extremely
>> easy with tool B.
>
> This isn't necessarily a problem, particularly if a person is already
> familiar with tool A while being completely unaware that tool B even
> existed.

You cannot make claim to being a Java programmer if you've never heard of Ant.

> Then there is a significant issue with being forced to learn an entirely new
> tool just because there might be a single thing that it might be able to
> handle in a simpler way, and then being forced to deal with a significant
> list of things where the new tool fails to perform. Unfortunately, this

Not Ant's problem.

> appears to be an undistinguishing feature of every automated build system
> that has been released.

Not Ant. Not that Ant is perfect, but it works as advertised.

You're full of fine generalities that simply do not apply to the Ant vs. make "debate".

>>> Also, gnumake can do so many more things than just build source
>>> code. I use it to update my html files and pdf files from
> >> Latex sources, and other such things.
>>
>> No wonder because make doesn't do *any* of these things. Make evaluates
>> timestamps along dependencies (mostly between files) and invokes other
>> programs that do all the work. GNU make additionally has an extremely
>> large database of predefined rules, has functions and other capabilities.
>
> There is nothing wrong with this. In fact, I see it as an extremelly
> valuable feature. It's a pain in the neck to shoe-horn custom build rules
> to an automated build system which was developed with them as an
> afterthought.

Also a benefit of Ant. Ant is extensible, unlike make. You can write new targets for it in Java.

>>> As long as the idea that drives the tool is: Perform this action
>>> to update these prerequisites that this target depends on, then better
>>> to use one tool that does this better and for many other things, not
>>> just .java files.

Not really. For one thing, Ant works better than make for Java, not the other way around. For another, Ant works on things besides Java. Come to think of it, your argument favors Ant over make.

>> Interestingly GNU make's large built in rule database does not contain
>> anything related to compiling Java. How do you create your Makefiles in
>> a way as to invoke javac only for those files which have changed -
>> especially in light of the fact that one Java source file might create
>> multiple .class files?
>
> Maybe build-in rules aren't needed, considering Make's [sic] static pattern rules.

Or considering that Ant is better and more standard for the purpose.

> http://www.gnu.org/software/make/man...Static-Pattern

--
Lew

Rui Maciel wrote:
> I would prefer to develop
> a skill which I already have than being forced to start from scratch by
> being forced to use another tool.

The sound of the career death knells tolling.

--
Lew

On Monday, April 23, 2012 3:38:47 PM UTC-7, Rui Maciel wrote:
> Daniel Pitts wrote:
>
> > Why not use an IDE though? They provide so much!
>
> They also tend to be inferior in a considerable number of aspects,
> particularly when compared with the features provided by some text editors.
> Between being forced to stick with an IDE and managing the build process by
> hand, the latter option sounds a lot better.

Baloney. Love the vague statements, "tend to be inferior" without specifics or statistics. Classic Troll-speak.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Editor_war>

Duck season!
Wabbit season!
Duck season!
Wabbit season!
Wabbit season!
Duck season!
BLAM!

--
Lew

On 12-04-23 07:44 PM, markspace wrote:
> On 4/23/2012 3:15 PM, Rui Maciel wrote:
>>
>> Maybe build-in rules aren't needed, considering Make's static pattern
>> rules.
>>
>> http://www.gnu.org/software/make/man...Static-Pattern
>>
>
>
> That's a good find, and I appreciate you pointing it out to this list.
> It's actually been several years since I've dealt with make's build
> rules in any way, and a small refresher wouldn't be bad for me.
>
> However, in the Java world, ant is the standard build program. (Or
> maven; however I haven't got into maven yet.) There's no way you can
> avoid ant. Any project that exists in Java, any deliverable you get
> from an outside contractor or firm, will invariably use ant. It is
> simply "the standard."
>
[ SNIP ]

That's the main argument. It's the best argument. Proposing the use of
"make" in a typical Java shop will elicit the same reaction as if you
proposed the use of Ant to Haskell developers. "make" is a non-standard
tool in Java development, whereas Java IDE build systems, Ant and Maven
_are_ standard. I note the Java IDE build systems separately, because a
lot of developers don't use Ant or Maven, they just produce JARs or WARs
or EARs with their IDE.

This argument implies that it doesn't even really matter how many
problems Ant addressed viz "make" for Java builds, or how successfully
it addressed all of them, or even what extra cruft and complexity that
Ant itself now has. All that matters in 2012 is that Ant is a major
build standard for Java, and "make" isn't.

AHS
--
A fly was very close to being called a "land," cause that's what they do
half the time.
-- Mitch Hedberg

On 4/23/2012 6:22 PM, Rui Maciel wrote:
> David Lamb wrote:
>
>> I've always used a combination of Emacs and make. Given your "single
>> makefile" question, though, I suspect you may have more sophisticated
>> needs than I do. Care to elaborate?
>
> There is nothing sophisticated in my needs. The only reason I mentioned
> makefiles is that I'm already familiar with them. I would prefer to develop
> a skill which I already have than being forced to start from scratch by
> being forced to use another tool.

Yes, but you also need a tool that work well with Java.

Make does not.

Arne

On 4/23/2012 6:38 PM, Rui Maciel wrote:
> Daniel Pitts wrote:
>
>> Why not use an IDE though? They provide so much!
>
> They also tend to be inferior in a considerable number of aspects,
> particularly when compared with the features provided by some text editors.
> Between being forced to stick with an IDE and managing the build process by
> hand, the latter option sounds a lot better.

Given that with mentioning any specific IDE's/editors then
an editor is a subset of an IDE, then that does not make
much sense..

Arne