From russel at russel.org.uk  Sat Aug 12 08:20:27 2006
From: russel at russel.org.uk (Russel Winder)
Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2006 13:20:27 +0100
Subject: [Rant] Rant and LaTeX
Message-ID: <1155385227.11000.109.camel@balin.russel.org.uk>

I have been looking for a replacement for Make.  I have tried SCons and
Rake and am now looking at Rant.  My particular problem of the moment is
building LaTeX books.  SCons supports this with builders that come as
standard with the distribution.  Rake appears to have no ready-made
builders of any sort so I ended up writing my own functions to do the
job.  Rant appears also not to have any ready-made support for LaTeX but
appears to have a more sophisticated view of things than Rake.

Is anyone working with LaTeX using Rant and has already created the
necessary infrastructure?

If not, then if someone can help me working out how to do the right
thing in terms of Rant, I am happy to construct the necessary code, test
it out and then donate it to the Rant project.
 
PS I am using Ubuntu (but I am getting Rant via Debian Unstable), I see
that Rake provide a Bash completion script but Rant does not.  I have
done a quick hack:  http://www.russel.org.uk/rantBashCompletion.html
-- 
Russel.
====================================================
Dr Russel Winder                +44 20 7585 2200
41 Buckmaster Road              +44 7770 465 077
London SW11 1EN, UK             russel at russel.org.uk
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From russel at russel.org.uk  Wed Aug 16 03:02:45 2006
From: russel at russel.org.uk (Russel Winder)
Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2006 08:02:45 +0100
Subject: [Rant] Is Rant a stalled project?
Message-ID: <1155711765.11000.488.camel@balin.russel.org.uk>

Is the traffic level on this list and indication that Rant is a stalled
and unused tool or have I got the wrong list for all the action?
-- 
Russel.
====================================================
Dr Russel Winder                +44 20 7585 2200
41 Buckmaster Road              +44 7770 465 077
London SW11 1EN, UK             russel at russel.org.uk
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From chandlerc at gmail.com  Wed Aug 16 11:51:58 2006
From: chandlerc at gmail.com (Chandler Carruth)
Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2006 11:51:58 -0400
Subject: [Rant] Is Rant a stalled project?
In-Reply-To: <1155711765.11000.488.camel@balin.russel.org.uk>
References: <1155711765.11000.488.camel@balin.russel.org.uk>
Message-ID: <18edb2ad0608160851w45e6f8bdq92786c3eb7b8f869@mail.gmail.com>

I am similarly concerned. However there are several projects I am working on
that are desparate for a build system, and I am strongly considering trying
to pick up the pieces of Rant, and move from there. So while the list and
the project as it stands may be stalled, there is still some interest out
there in a Ruby-based build system.

-Chandler Carruth

On 8/16/06, Russel Winder <russel at russel.org.uk> wrote:
>
> Is the traffic level on this list and indication that Rant is a stalled
> and unused tool or have I got the wrong list for all the action?
> --
> Russel.
> ====================================================
> Dr Russel Winder                +44 20 7585 2200
> 41 Buckmaster Road              +44 7770 465 077
> London SW11 1EN, UK             russel at russel.org.uk
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> make-cafe mailing list
> make-cafe at rubyforge.org
> http://rubyforge.org/mailman/listinfo/make-cafe
>
>
>
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From langstefan at gmx.at  Wed Aug 16 17:04:44 2006
From: langstefan at gmx.at (Stefan Lang)
Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2006 23:04:44 +0200
Subject: [Rant] Is Rant a stalled project?
In-Reply-To: <1155711765.11000.488.camel@balin.russel.org.uk>
References: <1155711765.11000.488.camel@balin.russel.org.uk>
Message-ID: <200608162304.44876.langstefan@gmx.at>

On Wednesday 16 August 2006 09:02, Russel Winder wrote:
> Is the traffic level on this list and indication that Rant is a
> stalled and unused tool or have I got the wrong list for all the
> action?

Hello, I'm the only Rant developer (some patches aside) and
currently I do not have enough time to make significant
progress. If bugs are reported, I'll fix them, but don't
expect new features in the near future from me.

Anyone interested in improving Rant is welcome. I can
also give commit access to the svn repository.
(Moving the repository to RubyForge, now that subversion
is supported, would be nice, too.)

-- 
Stefan

From chandlerc at gmail.com  Wed Aug 16 17:14:43 2006
From: chandlerc at gmail.com (Chandler Carruth)
Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2006 17:14:43 -0400
Subject: [Rant] Is Rant a stalled project?
In-Reply-To: <200608162304.44876.langstefan@gmx.at>
References: <1155711765.11000.488.camel@balin.russel.org.uk>
	<200608162304.44876.langstefan@gmx.at>
Message-ID: <18edb2ad0608161414qf081b14he26a955a205fa0a3@mail.gmail.com>

After a few weeks, I may well be interested in taking at least some burden
of the Rant development on. I now have about 3 projects that would greatly
benefit from it. I will contact you further as my time frees up.

If I get the time, commit access would be welcome, and I'd be willing to do
some of the leg (finger in this case?) work concerning moving it to
RubyForge.

-Chandler Carruth

On 8/16/06, Stefan Lang <langstefan at gmx.at> wrote:
>
> On Wednesday 16 August 2006 09:02, Russel Winder wrote:
> > Is the traffic level on this list and indication that Rant is a
> > stalled and unused tool or have I got the wrong list for all the
> > action?
>
> Hello, I'm the only Rant developer (some patches aside) and
> currently I do not have enough time to make significant
> progress. If bugs are reported, I'll fix them, but don't
> expect new features in the near future from me.
>
> Anyone interested in improving Rant is welcome. I can
> also give commit access to the svn repository.
> (Moving the repository to RubyForge, now that subversion
> is supported, would be nice, too.)
>
> --
> Stefan
> _______________________________________________
> make-cafe mailing list
> make-cafe at rubyforge.org
> http://rubyforge.org/mailman/listinfo/make-cafe
>
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From xavier-list at noreality.net  Thu Aug 17 03:04:35 2006
From: xavier-list at noreality.net (Xavier Shay)
Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2006 17:04:35 +1000
Subject: [Rant] Is Rant a stalled project?
In-Reply-To: <1155711765.11000.488.camel@balin.russel.org.uk>
References: <1155711765.11000.488.camel@balin.russel.org.uk>
Message-ID: <44E41503.3060308@noreality.net>

Russel Winder wrote:
> Is the traffic level on this list and indication that Rant is a stalled
> and unused tool or have I got the wrong list for all the action?

I'm using it for light C# build work. I think it's still a worthwhile 
tool even if ongoing development isn't really happening.

Xavier
http://rhnh.net

From russel at russel.org.uk  Thu Aug 17 09:18:43 2006
From: russel at russel.org.uk (Russel Winder)
Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2006 14:18:43 +0100
Subject: [Rant] Is Rant a stalled project?
In-Reply-To: <200608162304.44876.langstefan@gmx.at>
References: <1155711765.11000.488.camel@balin.russel.org.uk>
	<200608162304.44876.langstefan@gmx.at>
Message-ID: <1155820723.11000.661.camel@balin.russel.org.uk>

Sorry this got a bit long, but it isn't a rant :-)

On Wed, 2006-08-16 at 23:04 +0200, Stefan Lang wrote:

> Hello, I'm the only Rant developer (some patches aside) and
> currently I do not have enough time to make significant
> progress. If bugs are reported, I'll fix them, but don't
> expect new features in the near future from me.

I would say the hallmarks of a successful project are having a small
group of developers (so there is no reliance on any single individual)
and the user fora / mailing lists being vibrant.  As far as I can tell
SCons fits this.  Waf is in a similar position to Rant.  Rake appears to
have no concern with anything outside the Ruby community.  FTJam and
BJam don't appear to have as good a language for specifying build
compared to Python and Ruby.  CMake is trying to be a better Autotools
but is missing critical functionality and it's language is inferior to
having Python or Ruby as a base.

Maven, Ant and Gant are fairly specific to Java-related builds and tend
not to have any presence outside that.  I will have to declare an
interest here, I am a committer on the Groovy project and am creating
Gant  -- Gant is about replacing Ant's XML specifications with Groovy
scripts manipulating Ant tasks.  I use Gant a lot (obviously:-) but it
is not a sensible tool for C++, Python, Ruby and most especially LaTeX
builds.

So if there is to be a sensible replacement for  Autotools it is
probably going to come from the set CMake, SCons, Waf, Rant (or some
system I haven't come across yet) but none yet are really close to the
functionality of the Autotools.
 
> Anyone interested in improving Rant is welcome. I can
> also give commit access to the svn repository.
> (Moving the repository to RubyForge, now that subversion
> is supported, would be nice, too.)

Using Subversion rather than CVS is a big plus.

I have a couple of small C++ projects that I currently use Autotools for
but am trying out CMake, SCons and Waf.   Rake doesn't seem to be a
player (or want to be a player?) in this game.  I will of course have to
add Rant to the list.  The biggest issue for me is having the Autotools
functionality of checking for the right versions of software, especially
GTKmm, GnomeUImm, etc. 

My main focus for a build system though is LaTeX.  SCons has this built
it but SCons is very slow at startup and so command line completion in a
Linux context is awfully slow.  But SCons is good and it definitely has
a vibrant community.

Thomas Nagy has just added sensible LaTeX processing to Waf based on a
small little LaTeX demo I sent him when he asked me.  Waf is very
project based so it is fine for individual LaTeX books but not that
useful as a general processor of LaTeX jobs -- so for example I have all
my letters in a directory and want to make one of them and Waf has
problems in this sort of context.  SCons can do this sort of thing.
Rake cannot, or at least could not until I wrote various functions to
create some Rake infrastructure.  I extended this to create some
generalized infrastructure for building collected works and conference
proceedings.  However, I cannot seem to find anyone interested in this
sort of Rake infrastructure and getting LaTeX support added to the Rake
distribution.

So I have arrived at Rant.  Based on Ruby so easy to work with.  Almost
but not quite a superset of Rake.  Interested in building things other
than Ruby software systems.  Seems like a better choice than Rake.  But
is it?  This is a question I have to ask myself and have a realistic
answer; I need to feel comfortable about investing the effort to move
from Rake to Rant.  Apart from the fact that Rake has an article by
Martin Fowler and is deeply internalized with the Ruby community, it is
stable.  It doesn't seem to have any community but it does do the job
and lots of people are downloading it.  Rant appears to be technically
superior but it has no community and no publicity machine.  The analogy
here is between VHS and Betamax -- VHS was inferior but won out because
of the publicity and expectation management.  Currently Rake is winning
over Rant because it appears as a download on the Ruby front page.

So do I switch?  If so what is the right form in which to cast all my
bits and pieces of code to make a (pdf)(La)TeX build system?

Thanks.
-- 
Russel.
====================================================
Dr Russel Winder                +44 20 7585 2200
41 Buckmaster Road              +44 7770 465 077
London SW11 1EN, UK             russel at russel.org.uk
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From russel at russel.org.uk  Thu Aug 17 09:20:25 2006
From: russel at russel.org.uk (Russel Winder)
Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2006 14:20:25 +0100
Subject: [Rant] Is Rant a stalled project? PS
In-Reply-To: <1155820723.11000.661.camel@balin.russel.org.uk>
References: <1155711765.11000.488.camel@balin.russel.org.uk>
	<200608162304.44876.langstefan@gmx.at>
	<1155820723.11000.661.camel@balin.russel.org.uk>
Message-ID: <1155820825.11000.664.camel@balin.russel.org.uk>

Sorry, a PS

I think Rant if suffering from being called Make in various places,
including the URL for the project.  Rant is not Make, it is Rant.  Is
there a reason for trying to call it Make?

-- 
Russel.
====================================================
Dr Russel Winder                +44 20 7585 2200
41 Buckmaster Road              +44 7770 465 077
London SW11 1EN, UK             russel at russel.org.uk
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From langstefan at gmx.at  Thu Aug 17 14:43:16 2006
From: langstefan at gmx.at (Stefan Lang)
Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2006 20:43:16 +0200
Subject: [Rant] Is Rant a stalled project? PS
In-Reply-To: <1155820825.11000.664.camel@balin.russel.org.uk>
References: <1155711765.11000.488.camel@balin.russel.org.uk>
	<1155820723.11000.661.camel@balin.russel.org.uk>
	<1155820825.11000.664.camel@balin.russel.org.uk>
Message-ID: <200608172043.16491.langstefan@gmx.at>

On Thursday 17 August 2006 15:20, Russel Winder wrote:
> Sorry, a PS
>
> I think Rant if suffering from being called Make in various places,
> including the URL for the project.  Rant is not Make, it is Rant. 
> Is there a reason for trying to call it Make?

I searched for a build tool called "Rant" when I started the
project to make sure the name wasn't in use. Later, when
I registered the project at RubyForge, I found out that
there was already a project with name "rant" on RubyForge.
So I choose "make" as RubyForge project name, that's all.

-- 
Stefan

From russel at russel.org.uk  Thu Aug 17 14:56:02 2006
From: russel at russel.org.uk (Russel Winder)
Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2006 19:56:02 +0100
Subject: [Rant] Is Rant a stalled project? PS
In-Reply-To: <200608172043.16491.langstefan@gmx.at>
References: <1155711765.11000.488.camel@balin.russel.org.uk>
	<1155820723.11000.661.camel@balin.russel.org.uk>
	<1155820825.11000.664.camel@balin.russel.org.uk>
	<200608172043.16491.langstefan@gmx.at>
Message-ID: <1155840962.11000.880.camel@balin.russel.org.uk>

Stefan,

On Thu, 2006-08-17 at 20:43 +0200, Stefan Lang wrote:

> I searched for a build tool called "Rant" when I started the
> project to make sure the name wasn't in use. Later, when
> I registered the project at RubyForge, I found out that
> there was already a project with name "rant" on RubyForge.
> So I choose "make" as RubyForge project name, that's all.

Can I propose you contact Stefano Cobianchi and see if you can reverse
into the rant project.  That project has not done a proper front page,
has released no files, and appears to have had no commits for two years.
The alternative would be to have the project declared dead and then take
the name.  The current situation is rather untenable.

-- 
Russel.
====================================================
Dr Russel Winder                +44 20 7585 2200
41 Buckmaster Road              +44 7770 465 077
London SW11 1EN, UK             russel at russel.org.uk
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From xavier.shay at advatel.com.au  Sun Aug 20 20:55:51 2006
From: xavier.shay at advatel.com.au (Xavier Shay)
Date: Mon, 21 Aug 2006 10:55:51 +1000
Subject: [Rant] Non-deprecated C# compiling
Message-ID: <FA1A7A4DDE394A49B42A718142D101C2019AC6D5@advatelsbs.advatel.local>

The C# plugin is marked as deprecated.
http://make.rubyforge.org/files/doc/csharp_rdoc.html

Is there are non-deprecated way of compiling with c#, and if so is there
any documentation for it? I can't seem to locate any thing.

Why I'm asking: I've added some changes to the C Sharp plugin to support
some 2.0 things (like the /keyfile parameter). Is it worth reworking it
into separate 1.1/2.0 compiler support and putting these into a patch?

Xavier