On Friday, March 17, Laird Nelson wrote:
>
> 1. Run them (let's say nightly or frequently at any rate) out of a
> sandbox that has been massaged until there are no modified or ? files in
> it
> 2. Run them using make and VPATH such that the build takes place in
> directory tree B, but the source is looked up via make's VPATH mechanism
> from directory tree A (which B mirrors in structure), where A has been
> massaged until there are no modified or ? files in it
> 3. Do (2) but do a cvs -export to a fresh area first
4. Use a "configure" type tool (like gnu config), to create and build
in a separate "object/build" directory.
> We currently do (2) using a homegrown build system modeled after TCCS as
> outlined in the O'Reilly book (the homegrown system basically implements
> TCCS in perl using cvs as the underying VC system; complete with the
> robust parallel make tool). This allows us incremental builds (i.e. we
> don't have to do a full export every time we want to run a simple
> build).
This is a noble goal to have. However, unless your build environment is
exceedingly simple, and/or you spend a great deal of time making *sure*
all your dependancies are up to date, this method is going to bite you
once in a while. Not usually a big deal, and easily fixed (for the most
part), but something to look out for.
--Toby.
