Re: progmodes/project.el and search paths

[David Engster]

Dmitry Gutov writes:
> On 08/03/2015 04:49 PM, David Engster wrote:
>
>>  From what I see in project.el, this is an API for defining a set of
>> directories. I'm not saying that Emacs does not need such an API, but I
>> would not call this a "project API".
>
> These are the traits common to most projects that we've identified so
> far. Ones that a third-party package will almost always be able to
> use.

As I've said: I'm not saying it's not useful.

>> What about things like setting up
>> toolchains (compiler, linker, debugger), configurations (debug/release),
>> support for external build systems, setting up environment variables and
>> pre-processor symbols, and so on?
>
> What linker and pre-processor? Seriously, you're talking to a Ruby
> developer here.

Just because Ruby does not have them, project.el should not have support
for different toolchains?

> What aspects of "setting up a debugger" would you consider
> generalizable over different project systems?

A debugger needs to know where the executable is and how it should be
called.

> Same question about "support for external build systems".

If you say "compile this project", you will usually not call the
compiler directly but run some external build systems. Depending on the
current configuration (debug/release), it must be called differently.

> Do you need help setting up environment variables?

Yes. I might need to set things like CFLAGS dependend on the current
configuration. Or I might want to cross-compile, in which case I need to
set ARCH and CROSS_COMPILE.

>> of projects in pretty much any IDE. Will you add this to project,el
>> eventually?
>
> If people such as yourself help identify more pieces of knowledge that
> apply to most projects out there, I'd be happy to add them.

I've mentioned a few. If you add support for this, your simple API will
grow, and I wouldn't be surprised if in the end it looks a bit like EDE.

> Aside from that, EDE is a project system obviously geared towards
> C/C++ development.

It can (and does) support other languages.

-David