Re: Make utility

[glyn@AMISK.CS.UALBERTA.CA (Reade Glyn Devin)]

[Crossposted to csa2 with followup to csa2p since I'm not sure if
mail to info-apple will go to csa2p -- if someone sees _this_ article
on csa2p (as an original) please let me know and I'll stop cross-posting]

In article <1993Aug1.210732.1251@julian.uwo.ca>, Mike Hackett writes...
> 
> Is there a "full" make utility available for the GS yet?  I just checked
> pindarus, and "DOKUMAKE" looks like it's pretty good - at least it has
> macros.  But how does it stack up to a typical Unix version, such as GNU
> Make?  I'm considering attempting to port GNU make (I know - GNU stuff is
> usually a real mess), but if someone has already written or ported a make
> that's comparable, I'll be happy to use that.  Any info would be
> appreciated.  Thanks.

It isn't available yet, but I'm porting dmake (James Brooks was previously
working on it) from the University of Waterloo (Canada).  I'm getting a 
clean compile, but still tracking down bugs; once most of them are out of
the way, I'll release a beta version of the executable followed later by
the entire package.  Dmake is almost completely functionally equivalent
to GNU make.

I was previously working on GNU make, but stopped when I heard about dmake.
Believe me, you don't really want to even start on GNU make ( *shudder* ).
It is a truly bizzare and horrible thing to port.

(This, BTW, is a good example of why we should have a registry of who's
porting what.)

If you are looking for something useful to port, try RCS or the regex
library.  (Yes, I know we have one already available, but it's not complete;
we're missing the GNU entry points like re_compile_pattern and re_search.)
A lot of the GNU programs rely on regex.  These are available via anon ftp
from prep.ai.mit.edu in directory /pub/gnu.

--
        G. Devin Reade          glyn@cs.ualberta.ca