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A GUI Makefile manager

Bennett Steele · 2013-09-09T09:51:49

So from learning about makefiles, it seems that large projects have a large difficulty dealing with managing makefiles. It may not be an original idea, but its something that should likely be addressed. Even though makefiles are supposedly made to be easy, I'm sure there are people out there who would rather use a GUI to manage tens of hundreds of files in a minute or two rather than spending the day sorting and managing makefiles. So the concept is simple, and so is the implementation. If there is anyone out there who also thinks one should be made, please comment. PS: Also if there is such a program, feel free to post it.

General and Gameplay Programming Programming

Started by BennettSteele September 03, 2013 10:46 PM

10 comments, last by Steven Zhu 10 years, 7 months ago

BennettSteele

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September 04, 2013 07:58 PM

I think you're underestimating the complexity of what can be in a makefile. If you allow a user to hand-edit the generated makefile (or to have created the original input), then all bets are off. Depending on which version of make you're supporting, the language is turing complete. and lets you do pretty much anything. Creating a GUI that can parse/understand/edit/maintain that is not a trivial task. It's not even a difficult task - it's insane.

It would be insane to actually maintain the whole file. General parts of it though, like rules or commands could be taken as 'Name:Value' or input fields in the GUI. Adding files or dependencies would be mostly GUI, allowing you to select files or directories.