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GNU Make 4.0 Released

Posted by Soulskill on from the onward-and-upward dept.

jones_supa writes "A new major version of the classic GNU Make software has been released. First of all, Make 4.0 has integration support for GNU Guile Scheme. Guile is the extension system of the GNU project that is a Scheme programming language implementation and now in the Make world will be the embedded extension language. 4.0 also features a new 'output-sync' option, 'trace-enables' for tracing of targets, a 'none' flag for the 'debug' argument, and the 'job server' and .ONESHELL features are now supported under Windows. There are also new assignment operators, a new function for writing to files, and other enhancements. It's been reported that Make 4.0 also has more than 80 bug-fixes. More details can be found from their release announcement on the mailing list."

5 of 179 comments (clear)

  1. Me gusta! by serviscope_minor · · Score: 5, Informative

    This looks good.

    The --trace option is really nice. For some reason people think it is prettier to have makefiles not print put the compile lines. It is, of course, until it breaks.

    Make is one of those widely misunderstood tools. Despite being far simpler than, e.g. C it seems to be understood much worse. It's also sad that it diverged long ago, but it's good to see GNU trying to make it compatible with the divergent BSD and POSIX variants too.

    One Make to rule them all! While it seems fashionable not to use the GNU tools these days (for instance distros using less featureful and now slower AWKs than gawk by default), GNU Make is truly the superior one. It is very featureful and an excellent part of a build system.

    --
    SJW n. One who posts facts.
    1. Re:Me gusta! by dyingtolive · · Score: 4, Funny

      Any time I want to slack off or if I need some more time to work on something useful rather than the pointless tasks delegated in the name of excess micromanagement, I just kick off a kernel build on three or four different boxes and tell my boss I'm testing a client issue.

      You say pointless, but I think what you mean is ESSENTIAL.

      --
      Support the EFF and Creative Commons. The war is coming, and they're supporting you...
  2. I'm ready to replace Make by steveha · · Score: 4, Interesting

    There is a lot I don't like about Make, including GNU Make. The extensions it has received over the years make it incredibly baroque. I can't work on nontrivial makefiles without keeping a copy of the reference manual open to look things up, and the magic differences between tabs and spaces mean I need syntax highlighting to make sure I know what my makefiles really will do.

    So now GUILE integration. How many Slashdot users are big fans of the Scheme language? I appreciate the elegance but I don't want to work in it, and I don't look forward to trying to debug makefiles that make heavy use of it.

    I'm not sure what to use to replace Make though. I'm a Python guy so I would probably want Scons or something like that, but Ruby fans probably want Rake, Java fans probably want Ant, and in general I don't think there is any consensus on what might be the best replacement for Make.

    --
    lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
    1. Re:I'm ready to replace Make by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      > Protip: If you need another tool to build a project other than the compiler, then you're doing it wrong.
      Protip: If the only tool your project needs to build is the compiler, it's a trivial project.
      Generating any non-trivial product (package, installer, resources, doc, etc.) takes a pile of tools.

  3. Re:Scheme?!? by ebno-10db · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Human need contrast, but all lisp-likes provides is data structure like XML. (Haha, this comparison must make LISPers mad.)

    I hope you realize that you've just started a war that will make the Wars of the Reformation seem tame. Get out of Bohemia while you can! I'm staying neutral.