[Nix-dev] Re: scons / cmake

[Pjotr Prins]

On Sun, Apr 13, 2008 at 07:49:44PM +0200, Ludovic Courtès wrote:
> Packaging software that uses home-made build systems usually proves to
> be much less automatic and more painful because of this.

Appears to me there is room for a 'functional approach' towards
autoconfiguration - creating something like NIX expressions. I have
no real idea about the complexity of these auto-tools, but it looks
like it is all about configuration settings and making those
available to compilers and linkers. Because NIX is so clean it may be
straightforward to support multiple architectures and
cross-compiling using a nixconf tool. 

But maybe that is what Eelco is referring to in his wish for
replacing builder.sh (bash scripts).

Anyway, that is over my head and I realise we can't go and write
configuration tools for every package. I'll try and use cmake for
those who need it.

Pj.