[Distutils-sig] (fwd) PROPOSAL: XML based Make for C++, Perl, Python, Java

[Markus Fleck]

From c.l.py:

-- forwarded message --
From: Pluto <Pluto@nospam.com>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.perl.misc,comp.lang.java.programmer,comp.lang.python,comp.lang.c++
Subject: PROPOSAL:  XML based Make for C++, Perl, Python, Java
Date: Fri, 27 Nov 1998 11:45:34 -0800
Message-ID: <365F015D.4B86DE60@nospam.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: 10.143.0.235

Perl, Python,etc are scripting languages that I use and that make me
very productive relative to the systems level languages like Java and
C++ (that I also use).  There is a lot of innovation in both scripting
and system languages.  But Make stays the same - and cryptic as ever.

So, I was hoping to challenge the more knowledgeable people on these
newsgroups (Perl, Python, Java, C++) to cooperate and bring Make into
the 90s.  I was hoping to use an XML grammar to describe the Makefile.

The goals for this project:
1)  Increase productivity by atleast 200%, while reducing typical
makefile lines of code by 50%.
2)  Use a well defined XML standard.
3)  Very human-readable.
4)  X-Platform (Must run on Linux, NT, Solaris, AIX, HP-UX, others)
5)  X-Language (Must work for C++, Perl, Python, Java, others)

Perl's MakeMaker is a wonderful tool. And Perl is very popular (I like
Python too!).  So, I was hoping to get the Perl community to lead us to
the promised land by redoing MakeMaker using the above requirements.
And I also hope that Python, Java and C++ will aggresively build on
this.  For details on Perl's MakeMaker:
http://www.perl.com/CPAN/doc/manual/html/lib/ExtUtils/MakeMaker.html

====================================
luckily, while doing a dejanews search, I came across a very interesting
discussion on "perl.porters-gw".  See the post below by mike808@mo.net:

<module name="My::Module" version="0.01">
    <prereqs>
       <prereq>Some::Package 1.23</prereq>
       <prereq>Other::Module 4.56</prereq>
    </prereqs>
    <files base="/the">
    <file><path full>/the/first/module/</dir>file</file>
    <file><path relative="base">/second/module/</dir>file</file>
    <file><path relative="current">module/</dir>file</file>
    </files>
    <other>any other data</other>
</module>

Some ideas/projects immediately spring to mind:
   a MakeMaker package definition DTD?
   a converter from current MakeMaker format to the DTD XML format?
   a MakeMaker modification to understand the new DTD?
   an autodetect in MakeMaker to determine the makefile.PL format and
parse appropriately.
   Create Data::Dumper::XML?

====================================

Are the Perl MakeMaker team ready to lead?


-- end of forwarded message --

-- 
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
 Markus B Fleck - Student - University of Bonn - CS Dept IV - UNIX support
       "May you live in interesting times." (ancient Chinese curse)
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