Hi,

The mailing list providers FAQ suggests sending a message to this
list in order to submit a proposal for a mailing list. I'm not a
member of this list, so anyone who is willing to host this list,
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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