Openmoko build infrastructure questions

[John Lee]

Hi,

My 2 cents here.

git is a powerful scm, but it's quite different from svn+quilt.  This
might make it harder to learn.

It's the same thing here.

OE is a powerful build system, but it's quite different so it can be
hard to learn.

If you know how to use OE, develop with it can also be easy, too.
Here is how I do it.  I believe there are others using similar ways.

# compile for the first time to get the run.do_compile script.
bitbake helloworld -c compile
# switch to workdir, modify the code
temp/run.do_compile
# now copy to neo
scp helloworld/.libs/helloworld neo:

But if you don't understand it and try to fiddle it just like the way
you fiddle with another build system, it will give you nightmare.

So, in my point of view, this discussion is meaningful only if someone
can provide another build system that has the same or better ability
then OE, yet easier to learn, and the switching cost is acceptable.

Otherwise the real question is:

* How can we make OE easier to use? *

Most of the doubts and questions here will just go away once you
really understand it.  That's the hardest part, definitely much harder
then discussing on the mailing list.  I think that's the real problem.

We still don't have a nice develop environment.  The way I see it
there are 2 ways:

1. we teach people how to develop with OE.

2. we use another tool for development, like poky sdk.

3. (toolchain is not an option because most of the time it's best
   suited to kernel/boot developers)

I don't know which one is better and I haven't got the time to try it.
But *none* of them is related to a good build system.

Regards,
John