[Kolab-devel] Autofoo Proposal

[Richard Bos]

Op woensdag 12 mei 2010 04:34:32 schreef Jeroen van Meeuwen (Kolab Systems):
> I'm playing around with releasing, in full, the power of autofoo onto some
>  of  the Kolab packages.
> 
> I came to this plan through dist_conf/ and OpenPKG, which I believe have a
>  1- to-1 relationship.
> 
> Instead of using static dist_conf/* files, which turn outdated rather
>  quickly,  are volatile and do not allow for any flexibility on the user
>  end, I wanted to use autoconf.

A redesign might be needed, but using autoconf for this might add a lot of 
complexity.  To get the autoconf files right and to maintain them is not easy, 
and that might be a understatement.  The problem is perhaps solved as well 
using configuration files in a directory structure instead of a the flat file 
that is now used.  E.g.:
dist-conf.d/RH/version_1/ldap
dist-conf.d/RH/version_1/some_other_ldap_server
dist-conf.d/RH/version_2/ldap
dist-conf.d/openSUSE/11.2/ldap

If a more developed solution is still desired one could have a look at cmake.  
This build tool seem to be able to do the same as autoconf, but with a less 
complex environment.  See for opinions about cmake versus autoconf at various 
urls:
http://www.airs.com/blog/archives/95
http://www.linuxjournal.com/node/6700/print
http://jserv.sayya.org/cmake/cmake-overview.pdf (this one contains some 
chinese / japanese characters.  But the listing and pictures show the 
differences nicely)
http://www.cmake.org/cmake/project/success.html

-- 
Richard