Re: [pcre-dev] PERL Configure Makefile.PL for PERL_C_REGEXP?

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Author: Brian Barnes
Date:  
To: pcre-dev
Subject: Re: [pcre-dev] PERL Configure Makefile.PL for PERL_C_REGEXP?
Philip,
Sorry. I didn't mean to aim anything at you. I was just pointing out the
absurd state into which the build process has mutated. My first major
automation process was to build and regression test the entire AIX kernel
to ensure my bug fixes were effective and otherwise harmless. It took just
a few pages, KILO-Bytes to do everything.

Seeing a simple build take enough code to fill a NYC Yellow Page volume has
to make one wonder who is in charge. Your explanation that it's generated
code goes a long way to explains its Brobdingnagian extent and Kafkaesque
inscrutability.

A code generator is covering every combination with umpteen dozen
independent variables and the product is mushrooming without limit. It will
eventually hit some limit. Do you find it unsettling that increasingly
people are just feeding The Machine "without [their] needing to know
anything about it" and hoping things turn out right?

While blissfully auto-piloting past the precipice, their final thought was
elation that gravity had finally relented! :)

I have already coded what I needed in pure, primitive, pugnacious C. It can
parse the argv microseconds after I type it! That's why we fashion wrappers
employing nimble, Perl regexps!

I will look at CMake. It's missing a few items...

Happy Independence Day,

    Brian




On Sun, Jun 28, 2015 at 9:25 AM, <ph10@???> wrote:

> On Thu, 25 Jun 2015, Brian Barnes wrote:
>
> > windoz do NOT HAVE a bash shell. installing cygwin to get a half-assed
> > BASH comes at a very high price in bastardizing your machine into a
> > not-quite Linux, not-quite win, misbegotten kludge.
>
> That is probably why Windows users seem to prefer using CMake to build
> PCRE.
>
> > I thought of hacking that half-a-million-byte monstrosity of a configure
> > file until I looked at it. Have you ever considered upgrading your
> PERL_cre
> > configure script to config.PL???
>
> "configure" is auto-generated by the GNU autotools package. Many
> packagers and distributions expect and are used to this way of building
> software. I maintain two files called configure.ac and Makefile.am and
> the autotools do the rest. In particular, the fiddly stuff for building
> static and/or dynamic libraries is done without my needing to know
> anything about it.
>
> > The DATA STRUCTURES you feebly fumble with in that brain-dead,
> prehistoric,
> > anachronism of a macro language could be handled elegantly and with a
> tenth
> > of the code in a real data processing language. Like PERL!
>
> That is a criticism of the GNU build process - there no point aiming it
> at me. :-)
>
> Philip
>
> --
> Philip Hazel
>