Hi,
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please reply directly to me.
I'd like to set up a discussion group for Cons, a Software
Construction System. Cons could be viewed as a make replacement,
but is both simpler and more powerful than make.
Cons is free software, available from the Comprehensive Perl Archive
Network (CPAN) at:
http://www.perl.com/CPAN/authors/Bob_Sidebotham
The purpose of the list would be to discuss applications of Cons,
provide help for users who are using Cons, discuss extensions to
Cons, and for discussions of any other pertinent issues of software
construction and configuration.
I anticipate that an article on Cons will appear in the Fall issue
of The Perl Journal, and I would also like to accomodate the needs
of anyone who reads that article and needs more information.
For your information, here's an excerpt from the documentation for Cons:
Cons is a system for constructing, primarily, software, but is quite
different from previous software construction systems. Cons was
designed from the ground up to deal easily with the construction of
software spread over multiple source directories. Cons makes it easy
to create build scripts that are simple, understandable and
maintainable. Cons ensures that complex software is easily and
accurately reproducible.
Cons uses a number of techniques to accomplish all of this.
Construction scripts are just Perl scripts, making them both easy to
comprehend and very flexible. Global scoping of variables is replaced
with an import/export mechanism for sharing information between
scripts, significantly improving the readability and maintainability
of each script. Construction environments are introduced: these are
Perl objects that capture the information required for controlling the
build process. Multiple environments are used when different semantics
are required for generating products in the build tree. Cons
implements automatic dependency analysis and uses this to globally
sequence the entire build. Variant builds are easily produced from a
single source tree. Intelligent build subsetting is possible, when
working on localized changes. Overrides can be setup to easily
override build instructions without modifying any scripts. MD5
cryptographic signatures are associated with derived files, and are
used to accurately determine whether a given file needs to be rebuilt.
Thanks,
Bob Sidebotham
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