[Mulgara-dev] Build system

[Brian Sletten]

I'd like to work with you on this. I've wanted to clean up the build  
system too.

On Jul 10, 2008, at 6:07 PM, Paul Gearon wrote:

> Hi everyone,
>
> I've been having difficulties with the build system again, and I've
> been thinking I'd like to see something done about it.
>
> The system we have now was developed back in 2001, and it grew
> organically since then. There were two attempts to improve it before
> 2005 (neither of which improved things adequately), but since then it
> has languished.
>
> I'm trying to introduce a new module at the moment, and while it works
> fine in Eclipse, and I can even get it to compile in Ant, unrelated
> areas of the system start to fail their tests. I have some idea what's
> going on here, but the point is that it SHOULDN'T be this hard. Also,
> there is no real template of a build.xml for each module, nor is there
> any documentation on what's supposed to be happening in these modules.
> It makes introducing anything new really tough.
>
> Another reason to look at the build system is the need to integrate
> with the SAIL API. At the moment Sesame has to use a custom
> modification of Mulgara to work with us. That can't last if we want
> people to use this interface (and we do!!!). Unfortunately, I don't
> know Maven, so I don't know what's going to be involved in that
> particular change.
>
> My main point of concern with this is that it needs to happen soon,
> and yet I think it's too big a change between the current beta and the
> final 2.0 release. It's also a lot of work with no functional outcome
> for users (in particular, anyone funding Mulgara development).
> However, I think that working on this would save a lot of pain for any
> developers working on Mulgara.
>
> So I'm soliciting thoughts and opinions on this issue. Please offer
> some feedback, even if it's just, "don't bother", or "yes, please do
> it". (Though, ideally I'd prefer to hear more than that from a FEW
> people at least!)
>
> Thanks,
> Paul Gearon
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