> > i even use 'vi' to edit my files.
> You're a mad man :-)
There are more of us out here. ;)
> I learnt makefiles years ago, and fortunately haven't had to deal with
> them for some time :-) It was going back to them that was painful - it
> felt like going back to the 80s. There are nicer ways to do things these
> days :-)
automake is your friend.
My Makefiles are probably 50 lines, and when parsed with automake,
that balloons to 1,556 or so lines, which includes all of the structures
for each of the apps and libraries required. Makefiles are easy. Writing
the whole thing by hand is the hard part. automake makes it simple. (the
same goes for documentation, manpages, etc. automake can generate that for
you also).
> All the IDE's I use can set all the compiler options. And since I mainly
> use Delphi and Pascal (and C# a bit), there is no need for makefiles -
> Pascal doesn't need them.
I'm personally not a fan of IDEs for development. They slow things
down, when you have to reach for the mouse and click around to navigate
through it. I much prefer keyboard-only development, with GUI tools left
for debugging and testing of course. Everyone has their own way of doing
things though.
> Yes, it is a big question. It shouldn't be, but it is. Installation
> programs have moved on in the last few decades too :-) Why should I need
> to learn cygwin before I can do a simple install?
Because with Cygwin, you need to know what components you'll need
during the install. The list of available packages through Cygwin is
growing every day. Do you need headers for zlib? How about diff and
fileutils? You'll probably want to pick through the list to see if there
are components there that you may need now, or later on. It isn't as
simple as clicking Next -> Next -> Next -> Finish.
d.
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