Date: Tue, 24 Mar 1998 08:16:22 -0500 From: MALCOLM BOFF <Malcolm_Boff@compuserve.com> To: greg <grog@lemis.com> Cc: freebsd-questions <freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: make and gnu make Message-ID: <199803240817_MC2-37C2-F472@compuserve.com>
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Greg, the question you ask, namely "Why are you using SCCS ?" is to say the least controversial. This is almost akin to asking a COBOL programmer why he is using COBOL. Having been in programming for 30 years working in just about all languages I have learnt to steer away from such pointless debates. The last 15 years has been spent in contracting and here the discipline is not what you like but what the client wants and my client wants SCCS (it comes as a freebie with AIX). I have personally worked with a number of configuration management systems (but non of those supported by FreeBSD). My problem in working from home developing for AIX with SCCS has been that there is no port current for SCCS so stage I was to give assistance to the development of a look alike (see jay@gun.org) which I now use although there are one or two features which are incomplete. Having gone thru this loop it was more than a little annoying to find that 'make' knows nothing about the SCCS tilde rules. I think perhaps I have already answered your question however I would point out to you that scanning thru most of the source code I see that 90% of the modules bear the SCCS hallmark and while you may have a view that there are better systems available there is still life in SCCS yet !! Malcolm G. Boff Sylmex Ltd. On Mon, 23 March 1998 at 9:23:13 -0500, MALCOLM BOFF wrote: >> On Fri, 20 Mar 1998, MALCOLM BOFF wrote: > >>> Can anyone tell me whether or not gnu make provides support for the >>> tilde (~) rules as used by SCCS or not as the FreeBSD 'make' does not. > >> No clue. > >>> As an aside the FreeBSD make seems very non-standard from the versions >>> of 'make' that I have always used in the past and certainly doesn't look >>> like the 'make' described in ORA. Why is that ?? > >> The FreeBSD make comes directly out of 4.4BSD, and is thus dubbed ``BSD >> make''. It is quite strict in syntax. I believe the ORA book uses >> Solaris make which is a bastardization of make. > > It is with some trepidation that I have to disagree with > your comments Doug. > > The ORA book "Managing Projects with Make" (Nutshell) > specifically states :- > > "This handbook is designed to teach you all the main > features of the augmented version of make distributed > with AT&T System V UNIX. This is the same version present > in Berkeley UNIX distributions." The make book was written quite some time ago, before pmake (now BSD make) became available. The first edition was written in 1986, and the second edition in 1991. I don't think there have been significant changes since. Up to 4.3BSD Tahoe (I think), BSD make was effectively the same as System V make, both being descended from the Sixth/Seventh Edition makes. pmake and GNU make are both new implementations. Sorry I didn't answer your original question (does GNU make support ~ rules?). I don't know it off the top of my head, and basically it's an RTFM. I'd guess that the answer is "yes", though. It handles RCS quite well. Which only leaves the question: "Why are you using SCCS?". Greg To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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