Re: Bug#553420: debian-policy: Please clarify what is the interface for building binary packages.

[Charles Plessy <plessy@debian.org>]

Le Sat, Oct 31, 2009 at 12:44:28PM +0100, Emilio Pozuelo Monfort a écrit :
> I think there's consensus not to go in that direction. I personally would hate
> it if there were debian/rules written in Perl, Python, shell, make, Ruby... So
> I'm happy there are enough constraints in Policy in this area.

Le Sat, Oct 31, 2009 at 09:47:19AM -0700, Russ Allbery a écrit :
> Allowing people to write debian/rules in other languages, allowing unusual
> make flags, or allowing tricky variable manipulation outside of the make
> language such as in the vdr packages just adds to that complexity and
> learning curve.  I think Debian suffers from that additional complexity.

I will not argue much further, but isn't it is an illusion to think that the
build system stays simple by enforcing the use of GNU Make. This is completely
defeated by:

  #!/usr/bin/make -f
  %:
  	dh $@

Therefore, to me it makes things clearer to emphasise that the key properties
of debian/rules is to be executable and to accept the build, clean, etc.
arguments, rather than emphasising that it is a Makefile, which is an
information on which little can be built.

Have a nice day,

-- 
Charles Plessy
Tsurumi, Kanagawa, Japan