
Pymake: A Mostly GNU-compatible `make`, Written in Python - newsit
http://benjamin.smedbergs.us/blog/2009-02-13/pymake/
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jacquesm
What an excellent piece of documentation on why you should not roll your own
build system.

"because I can" is right next to the reasons the author gives:

"Why don’t you just hack GNU make itself?

There are some improvements we’re interested in doing which just aren’t
possible within a C codebase:

    
    
        * implementing rules directly in Python
        * Condensing multiple invocations of make into a single process
    

. Python is also about a zillion times easier to hack quickly."

What a totally pointless exercise, if anything he should have spent the time
to make the build process _less_ dependent on other packages, not more.

Same with javas 'ant', why on earth does everybody and their brother feel the
need to reinvent the wheel.

If you're going to roll out some package try to keep your dependencies to the
absolute minimum.

~~~
devicenull
According to the comments on that post, building mozilla already required
python, so it's not a new dependency.

~~~
jacquesm
I read those comments before making my post here, I realize it was not a new
dependency, hence my 'less'. By adding more cruft that makes the mozilla build
more dependent on python there is not 'another dependency' created, but it is
harder to get rid of that dependency.

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acangiano
See Waf: <http://code.google.com/p/waf/>

