4 ms·

The sad fact is that a lot of software is difficult to compile; isn't documented well, something that is worse for building; won't work well if installed in a n

The sad fact is that a lot of software is difficult to compile; isn't documented well, something that is worse for building; won't work well if installed in a non-standard way, whether that is final location, different supporting libs, or different platform; and can take a long time. I'm happy nowadays when I see there's a binary available, no mucking around with gcc/clang/llvm - just trying to work out which one, let alone which version! - no diving down a rabbit hole of compiling dependencies that then need other dependencies compiled… no deciphering Makefiles that were written in a way that only a C guru can grok, with no comments. Whatever the benefits are, I prefer sanity.

Rendello 5y ago
This is one thing where I see Rust (and probably Zig) making headway. A lot of the newer Rust software isn't in package repos yet, but I don't mind doing a Cargo build. It might take a while to compile, but it always seems to just work.
lnxg33k1 5y ago
https://hub.docker.com/r/gentoo/stage3 https://hub.docker.com/r/gentoo/stage3
wowi42 5y ago
> The sad fact is that a lot of software is difficult to compile; isn't documented well, something that is worse for building; won't work well if installed in a non-standard way, whether that is final location, different supporting libs, or different platform; and can take a long time. So are you ready to deploy in prod a software that is so hard to compile? > I'm happy nowadays when I see there's a binary available, no mucking around with gcc/clang/llvm - just trying to work out which one, let alone which version! - no diving down a rabbit hole of compiling dependencies that then need other dependencies compiled… no deciphering Makefiles that were written in a way that only a C guru can grok, with no comments. But that's my job, as SRE/DevOps/whatever new fancy name! > Whatever the benefits are, I prefer sanity. Sanity of having a very old software, with backported features that are only on this distrib? I prefer to trust the engineers from the software that I deploy.
- brigandish 5y ago
  I'm sorry but I just don't understand your point. Would you clarify?
anthk 5y ago
Try pkgsrc.
- brigandish 5y ago
  I do, it's very good!
binarybanana 5y ago
That doesn't match my experience. Two decades ago everything was in constant flux and more unreliable, but nowadays it's rare to find broken builds. It's only difficult if you distribution puts headers and such in separate packages, or splits up stuff so much that it's hard to tell what you actually need. Can't remember the last time I had to intervene to compile a random GitHub project I wanted to try out. It just works.
- brigandish 5y ago
  Are you on Linux? I'm running a Mac, and I find broken builds for projects big and small all the time. I'd open issues for them but the number of times I get a "it works for me" and any of the myriad other types of shrug devs like to give tends to put me off.
  - binarybanana 5y ago
    Ah yes, that would probably explain your experience. OSX might be UNIX certified, but it differs in radical ways from classic UNIX, like file system hierarchy and installed libraries (how many have something like glib installed system wide?). It's unfortunate (or is it?) but very much not surprising that a proprietary OS would be a second class citizen in an open source ecosystem, especially when dealing with more strongly libre minded free software people like you can expect in larger numbers for enthusiastic hobby projects.

Rendello 5y ago

This is one thing where I see Rust (and probably Zig) making headway. A lot of the newer Rust software isn't in package repos yet, but I don't mind doing a Cargo build. It might take a while to compile, but it always seems to just work.

lnxg33k1 5y ago

https://hub.docker.com/r/gentoo/stage3 https://hub.docker.com/r/gentoo/stage3

wowi42 5y ago

> The sad fact is that a lot of software is difficult to compile; isn't documented well, something that is worse for building; won't work well if installed in a non-standard way, whether that is final location, different supporting libs, or different platform; and can take a long time. So are you ready to deploy in prod a software that is so hard to compile? > I'm happy nowadays when I see there's a binary available, no mucking around with gcc/clang/llvm - just trying to work out which one, let alone which version! - no diving down a rabbit hole of compiling dependencies that then need other dependencies compiled… no deciphering Makefiles that were written in a way that only a C guru can grok, with no comments. But that's my job, as SRE/DevOps/whatever new fancy name! > Whatever the benefits are, I prefer sanity. Sanity of having a very old software, with backported features that are only on this distrib? I prefer to trust the engineers from the software that I deploy.

brigandish 5y ago
I'm sorry but I just don't understand your point. Would you clarify?

anthk 5y ago

Try pkgsrc.

brigandish 5y ago
I do, it's very good!

binarybanana 5y ago

That doesn't match my experience. Two decades ago everything was in constant flux and more unreliable, but nowadays it's rare to find broken builds. It's only difficult if you distribution puts headers and such in separate packages, or splits up stuff so much that it's hard to tell what you actually need. Can't remember the last time I had to intervene to compile a random GitHub project I wanted to try out. It just works.

brigandish 5y ago
Are you on Linux? I'm running a Mac, and I find broken builds for projects big and small all the time. I'd open issues for them but the number of times I get a "it works for me" and any of the myriad other types of shrug devs like to give tends to put me off.
- binarybanana 5y ago
  Ah yes, that would probably explain your experience. OSX might be UNIX certified, but it differs in radical ways from classic UNIX, like file system hierarchy and installed libraries (how many have something like glib installed system wide?). It's unfortunate (or is it?) but very much not surprising that a proprietary OS would be a second class citizen in an open source ecosystem, especially when dealing with more strongly libre minded free software people like you can expect in larger numbers for enthusiastic hobby projects.