Re: [ANN] Bou - a Lua-based Build System

["Brandon Van Every" <bvanevery@...>]

On Feb 9, 2008 5:50 AM, Brandon Van Every <bvanevery@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Feb 9, 2008 4:46 AM, Bradley Smith <gmane@baysmith.com> wrote:
> >
> > In my opinion, Lua's small size also means simpler.
>
> A scripting language is only part of a build system.  That's why I
> think it's silly to talk about 128K build systems.  Can your teeny
> weeny build system [do whatever...]

My bad, it is 6 am and I've been up all night.  I meant, it's silly to
bemoan a ~4 MB build system, if that build system has a lot of
industrial capabilities that the 128K build system does not.  128K
build systems are fine if your build needs are almost trivial.  One
thing I've learned from the school of hard knocks, is it's difficult
to convince small software projects of anything because they don't
really need much.  They don't see the tradeoffs that become important
with a larger build system.  Medium sized projects, like up to 100K
LOC, are a gray area.  They can have complexity that belies their
size.  When you get into large projects, like millions of LOC, you
care about whether your build tool can handle large systems.  I agree
that large systems probably aren't a good thing in general, but they
do exist and evolve, there are $$$$$$$$ reasons for that, and we often
need tools to deal with software as it actually is.


Cheers,
Brandon Van Every