Re: Is a modern build system acceptable for older platforms

On May 17, 2018 7:44:44 PM PDT, Bruce Momjian <bruce(at)momjian(dot)us> wrote:
>On Thu, May 3, 2018 at 12:32:39AM +0200, Catalin Iacob wrote:
>> I do have a real concern about the long term attractiveness of the
>> project to new developers, especially younger ones as time passes.
>> It's not a secret that people will just avoid creaky old projects,
>and
>> for Postgres old out of fashion things do add up: autoconf, raw make,
>> Perl for tests, C89, old platform support. I have no doubt that the
>> project is already loosing competent potential developers due to
>this.
>> One can say this is superficial and those developers should look at
>> the important things but that does not change reality that some will
>> just say pass because of dislike of the old technologies I mentioned.
>> Personally, I can say that if the project were still in CVS I would
>> probably not bother as I just don't have energy to learn an inferior
>> old version control system especially as I see version control as
>> fundamental to a developer. I don't feel the balance between
>> recruiting new developers and end user benefits tilted enough to
>> replace the build system but maybe in some years that will be the
>> case.
>
>What percentage of our adoption decline from new developers is based on
>our build system, and how much of it is based on the fact we use the C
>language?

I think neither is as strong a factor as our weird procedures and slow review. People are used to github pull requests, working bug trackers, etc. I do think that using more modern C or a reasonable subset of C++would make things easier. Don't think there's really an alternative there quite yet.

Andres

Andres
--
Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.