[Bf-committers] Speaking only obvious..

[Kiernan Holland]

Is Scons just another Makefile subtitute or is it really worthy of a 
autoconf substitute.. Like doesn't autoconf also determine the existence of 
system attributes before determining the kind of compile? 
Is scons capable of retaining this information for the build. 

I don't think the Makefile and Scons can coexist.. For one there isn't
(according ot the FAQ) 
a Makefile parser for Scons.. So there will need to be someone to manage
the makefiles 
parallel to Scons.. And autoconf generates Makefiles.. They claim someone
could create a 
Makefile parser (common exercise in most college programming courses)  
and have Scons act on the Makefiles, that would allow hybrid
Scons/Makefiles to 
be written.. 

One idea I have about the build process is if its even possible to seperate
the code such that 
the pure system inspecific code from the system specific code. I've thought
something like this 
could be done with the CVS, by maintain a branch for every system type and
migrating 
system inspecific code into the pure branch and somehow building the pure
code before 
linking in the system specific code.. 

Another idea I had was somehow to CVS the Makefile, or if Scons could
maintain
build process that allows for inheritance behaviour, each build is based
upon 
an older build but with some extra changes..  Like having a build for the 
IRIX platform, but allowing a custom build that inherits from the IRIX
platform but 
defines a different set of files to allow blender to take advantage of a
mega 
processor configuration, such as the ones John Walton is dreaming of.. 

That way when a new release of Irix occurs, there can be a branch for that
system 
but it could adopt the changes for the multiprocessor system, if they
haven't changed.. 

It would also be easier to select between a super specific build, a system
specific 
build, and a general unix build, upto a blender render server (black box)
build.. 
So at teh very least some build configuration is possible..