[colug-432] February COLUG Meeting Announcement

[Scott McCarty]

Definitely the build tools!!! I understand the basics of Maven, Rake, etc, but it would be cool to see how people are really using them. With open source C code almost everybody uses automake, so the build process is (or some variation of that):

./configure
make
make install

There are variations and also all kind of unofficial standards with things like --prefix, etc, etc. I think most of us are familiar, IMHO, with these kinds of things. It's sort of tribal knowledge, but it's fairly well known. What I would like to see is a comparison of how Java/Ruby/Python compare to the way we normally do things in C. I kinda know a lot of this stuff myself, but I think there are some black holes and gaps and I think a compare/contrast between modern open-source build tools/workflows vs. tradition would be a great service to most of us.

Virtulenv is similar to RVM except virtual env can't grab the source, and compile it as I have been told that RVM can. I could imagine a presentation that has a couple of diagrams showing a couple standard C workflows compared with one for Python, one for Ruby, and one for Java. Honestly, Java is the most interesting to me because the Java world is so large and it is the one I am least familiar with. It would be completely OK to demonstrate how Java goes beyond what normal C programmers with automated builds, etc, though I believe C programmers are doing this too now.

Best Regards
Scott M

----- Original Message -----
From: "Rob Funk" <rfunk at funknet.net>
To: "Central OH Linux User Group - 432xx" <colug-432 at colug.net>
Sent: Tuesday, February 21, 2012 10:23:56 AM
Subject: Re: [colug-432] February COLUG Meeting Announcement

On Tuesday, February 21, 2012 09:49:06 AM Scott McCarty wrote:
> As a final comment on code compilation, I would say I am most intrigued by
> the Java world, where I have the least experience. I hear about all of
> these build tools. I think it would be quite interesting to see a side by
> side comparison of:
> 
> C
> Java
> Python
> Ruby

A comparison as languages, or as programming tool environments?

> Along with all of the build tools that are associated and their
> equivalents. I am quite familiar with C build tools as I think most Unix
> guys are (probably many on this list), but I am much less knowledgeable
> when it comes to the Java/Python/Ruby worlds, yet there is an endless sea
> of blog posts about RVM, VirtualEnv, Maven, Jenkins, etc.

Hm, the things you list do different things.
RVM switches between Ruby interpreters/environments. I'm not that familiar 
with the Python world but I get the impression that VirtualEnv does something 
similar there.
Maven is sort of an uber-make, optimized for Javaland but usable beyond that.
Jenkins is a build server, useful for running builds of projects for 
continuous integration testing or deployment; it calls other build tools 
(make, ant, maven, rake, whatever) to do the actual work.

> This level of
> "compiling open source", I believe, is extremely applicable to the modern
> professional Linux person and I would love to see a talk expanded into
> this are of compilation/building free software.

I might be able to contribute to something like this, with my experience in C, 
Ruby, and a little Java. (Though these days I'm doing Javascript and PHP, and 
my Ruby is a few years out of date.)
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