Re: GSoC project idea: non-recursive automake project

[Harlan Stenn]

Hi Ralf,

Ralf wrote:
> * Harlan Stenn wrote on Sat, Mar 19, 2011 at 01:26:58AM CET:
> > If there was a student interested in showing how "easy" it was to use
> > automake to do non-recursive Makefiles for a project, I'd be willing to
> > co-mentor and work with them to convert NTP to that sort of operation.
> 
> Thanks for the co-mentoring offer and the SoC idea!
> 
> I have a question though: how much work do you expect this to be?
> Haven't looked at NTP in a long time, but typically, turning a project
> into non-recursive was either a straightforward to trivial task of
> maybe 1-2 days for somebody experienced with autotools, or something
> difficult to impossible due to limitations in either of Make, Automake,
> or third-party bits.

If my goal was only to get a basic non-recursive Makefile setup going
for NTP, then yeah, I think it might be fairly easy.

Larry McVoy once said something like "In theory, theory and practice are
the same.  But in practice, they are not."

There are various "use" cases that should be explored - running make
from the top-level, running make from a subdir where a specific target
is asked to be built, etc.

The description, choices, and options should all be documented.

> Maybe such a proposal could be enhanced to avoid having not enough work:
> For example, while converting NTP, the student could start a document
> with a general recipe for this conversion.  And then maybe try it out on
> a couple more projects, and possibly refine the recipe along the way.
> For students that get very far, they could also try working on
> limitations in other tools should they come across them.
> 
> This way the student will not get bored.  However, it might be harder
> to define specific goals to achieve, or to define success in the end.

Yes, and I'd look at "making it 'go' on NTP" be part of the
proof-of-concept that we had a reasonably robust design with adequate
documentation.

> Would you be willing to formulate this as a proposal for the GNU
> proposals wiki page?

I think so, yes.  My "problem" is that I will only have a few hours'
time to work on this between now and this Monday, and I will probably
have no time from this Tuesday until the following Monday.

> I should note that I certainly don't have unlimited mentoring time.
> I expect to be able to mentor one student, and I'm sure co- or backup-
> mentoring beside that should be possible, but if we can find another
> person to help that would only be good.

Yup, I suspect I'll be at my "maximum load" for GSoC this year, too.

H