4 ms·

There's already a standard that's been in place for ages and ages: ./configure make make install

by ziggus 5y ago

jcelerier 5y ago
it's not a useful standard if it does not work out-of-the-box on a native windows install
lhorie 5y ago
That's just for building though, isn't it? Package managers these days deal w/ network, registries, version management, transitive dependency resolution, etc. Not to mention Windows.
chrisseaton 5y ago
I'm not sure that's what people mean by package management. For example if a configure script has a dependency on a library... then what? It doesn't help me find and install the right version of that dependency, does it? In my experience it just says 'dependency not installed'.
- klyrs 5y ago
  I think it's meant as a joke, but for many of us, there's some truth to it. If you're missing a dependency, you'll need to download, configure, make, install it.
  - chrisseaton 5y ago
    > If you're missing a dependency, you'll need to download, configure, make, install it. Right but people want their package managers do this for them. That’s the whole point.
    - klyrs 5y ago
      That's what indicates to me that it was intended as a joke, yes.
CJefferson 5y ago
Your suggestion doesn't install dependencies, doesn't check for out of date software, and doesn't work on windows. Those all seem like fairly major issues to me.
tln 5y ago
And it's showing its age!
maccard 5y ago
That often doesn't work on windows. Autotools are brittle at the best of times even on the same platform. Makefiles aren't actually portable (there are many flavours of make). none of that is standardised in any way, no software that I have installed in the last 10 years has had it as its install instructions for anything other than development. It also doesn't handle dependencies, if the library uses libfoo@v0.0.1 and I have libfoo@v0.0.2 installed, this will happily attempt to continue. This isn't a solved problem, by any stretch of the imagination.

There's already a standard that's been in place for ages and ages: ./configure make make install

by ziggus 5y ago

There's already a standard that's been in place for ages and ages: ./configure make make install

jcelerier 5y ago

it's not a useful standard if it does not work out-of-the-box on a native windows install

lhorie 5y ago

That's just for building though, isn't it? Package managers these days deal w/ network, registries, version management, transitive dependency resolution, etc. Not to mention Windows.

chrisseaton 5y ago

I'm not sure that's what people mean by package management. For example if a configure script has a dependency on a library... then what? It doesn't help me find and install the right version of that dependency, does it? In my experience it just says 'dependency not installed'.

klyrs 5y ago
I think it's meant as a joke, but for many of us, there's some truth to it. If you're missing a dependency, you'll need to download, configure, make, install it.
- chrisseaton 5y ago
  > If you're missing a dependency, you'll need to download, configure, make, install it. Right but people want their package managers do this for them. That’s the whole point.
  - klyrs 5y ago
    That's what indicates to me that it was intended as a joke, yes.

CJefferson 5y ago

Your suggestion doesn't install dependencies, doesn't check for out of date software, and doesn't work on windows. Those all seem like fairly major issues to me.

tln 5y ago

And it's showing its age!

maccard 5y ago

That often doesn't work on windows. Autotools are brittle at the best of times even on the same platform. Makefiles aren't actually portable (there are many flavours of make). none of that is standardised in any way, no software that I have installed in the last 10 years has had it as its install instructions for anything other than development. It also doesn't handle dependencies, if the library uses libfoo@v0.0.1 and I have libfoo@v0.0.2 installed, this will happily attempt to continue. This isn't a solved problem, by any stretch of the imagination.