John R. Culleton wrote:
On Monday 09 April 2007 22:56, Bill Baxter wrote: As a Linux user I vote for traditional ./configure, make and make install just like most other Linux apps use. I have no opinion on how the program should be packaged for Windows users.
A pro for both buildtool and CMake is that they will use the same process on Linux, Mac and Windows.
I generally stick to released versions rather than overnight development products. But if I were tempted in that direction, again the traditional cvs system is familar to most and would be the least troublesome method of presentation.
Too late for that. We switched to SVN quite some time ago. I think I can speak for the other developers when I say that we don't regret it. If git will be able to support the development practices that we need to use to do the heavy refactoring that still needs to be completed on the inkscape code base without much additional complexity on any supported platform, it will be a huge win and I don't foresee regret there either.
Variations from the normal as described above cause me nothing but grief. Early in my computing career I was urged to "Keep it simple, stupid (KISS)." I pass this plea on to the developers. Burdening the end user with downloading/compiling/learning the latest bleeding edge installation package is a major hindrance and can discourage use unnecessarily.
We cater simplicity to our end users by supplying a number of frequent snapshot binary packages. Simplicity for new developers is a very high priority for us. But we still have to weigh these priorities against the pain that the core developers feel on a daily basis. Git may have a slight learning curve, but with a tool such as cogito it is a very smooth transition from the SVN that we have grown to love. CMake replaces autogen.sh and configure and retains the normal make. autotools is a complicated system that requires significant experience to adminsiter. If anything CMake would be getting simpler!
Aaron Spike