3 ms·

I doesn't change the fact that it's terrible and that better alternative exist (for instance, CMake), thereby making it yet another cruft from the past.

by norswap 14y ago

lmm 14y ago
The bazaar is perfectly capable of adopting improvements that prove themselves, and eliminating cruft from the past, if the cost is worth it. See the recent systemd fuss. If CMake really is better then eventually all important projects will shift over to it, and distributions will stop installing autoconf by default, or eventually at all. The fact that this hasn't happened already tells us that the practical difference isn't big enough to justify expending a lot of effort on switching.
- TylerE 14y ago
  Disagree. The bazaar model SUCKS at getting rid of cruft. New stuff gets added sure, but old dependencies never seem to go away. It's just accretion. The prevailing attitude is that "hard drive space is cheap." This inevitable leads to calcification and the perpetuation of sub-par solutions, like auto-crap. It get used because "everything else uses it".
  - acdha 14y ago
    There are many old libraries which have been phased out and replaced in the OSS community. It's not fast but it's pretty good compared to the commercial world where companies like Microsoft or Oracle ship everything without gaping security holes until the last customer stops using it.
- michaelt 14y ago
  The fact that this hasn't happened already tells us that the practical difference isn't big enough to justify expending a lot of effort on switching. Are you arguing that it can't be a good idea, because if it was a good idea it would already have been done?
  - lmm 14y ago
    Yes, you're quite right, I can't use that argument. But the fact that similar ideas have been done tells us that the system is capable of implementing good ideas; autotools' continued existence is not the result of a general problem with the bazaar model; there must be some narrower reason why it hasn't been replaced.

I doesn't change the fact that it's terrible and that better alternative exist (for instance, CMake), thereby making it yet another cruft from the past.

by norswap 14y ago

I doesn't change the fact that it's terrible and that better alternative exist (for instance, CMake), thereby making it yet another cruft from the past.

lmm 14y ago

The bazaar is perfectly capable of adopting improvements that prove themselves, and eliminating cruft from the past, if the cost is worth it. See the recent systemd fuss. If CMake really is better then eventually all important projects will shift over to it, and distributions will stop installing autoconf by default, or eventually at all. The fact that this hasn't happened already tells us that the practical difference isn't big enough to justify expending a lot of effort on switching.

TylerE 14y ago
Disagree. The bazaar model SUCKS at getting rid of cruft. New stuff gets added sure, but old dependencies never seem to go away. It's just accretion. The prevailing attitude is that "hard drive space is cheap." This inevitable leads to calcification and the perpetuation of sub-par solutions, like auto-crap. It get used because "everything else uses it".
- acdha 14y ago
  There are many old libraries which have been phased out and replaced in the OSS community. It's not fast but it's pretty good compared to the commercial world where companies like Microsoft or Oracle ship everything without gaping security holes until the last customer stops using it.
michaelt 14y ago
The fact that this hasn't happened already tells us that the practical difference isn't big enough to justify expending a lot of effort on switching. Are you arguing that it can't be a good idea, because if it was a good idea it would already have been done?
- lmm 14y ago
  Yes, you're quite right, I can't use that argument. But the fact that similar ideas have been done tells us that the system is capable of implementing good ideas; autotools' continued existence is not the result of a general problem with the bazaar model; there must be some narrower reason why it hasn't been replaced.