Re: gcc Recipes

[Mark Richards <mark.richards@massmicro.com>]

Richard Purdie , On 3/31/2010 07:28:
> I've just been looking over OE's gcc recipes and they really depress
> me :(. People touch them just enough to tweak their specific problem
> with no real thought going into the overall architecture and its a
> sprawling mess. I tackled some of this a while back. Sadly its just
> getting worse again.
>
>    
I'm prompted to reply, not as I am experienced enough (in the least) to 
help, so sorry about that, but to offer a thought about recipes and OE 
in general.  I hope this thought will apply to this thread.

When starting to use OE I was surprised that it is necessary to tinker 
with recipes at all.  For that matter, I've had to tinker with other 
things as well, which means that every update has a potential to wipe 
out my changes.  Now this is probably just an expression of the fact 
that I am very new to this environment...

In another development system (one I am very fond of) the build process 
checks for the presence of and content of user-created configuration 
files which serve various purposes.  Principally these tell the system 
where it can find additional libraries and source trees to build and 
include in the end-result.  This method protects all the internals from 
mangling, which I think is what I am reading in your description of the 
Recipes as a "sprawling mess".  This then makes the overall system 
dysfunctional downstream and, as you point out, requires fixing to get 
it back into a state that can be understood and worked with properly.  
Now this system I speak of has only 10% of the power of OE, so perhaps 
it is not a fair comparison.  Yet I think a good principle to follow is 
one that provides user-specific hooks that insulate the internals.  One 
should only tinker with the works if it will be consistent with the 
overall design and not break functionality.

/mark