Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System

"Jim B. Kowalkowski" <[email protected]> · Wed, 18 Dec 1996 10:42:32 -0600

Claude Saunders wrote:
> 
> I would like to STRONGLY encourage that a separate guide to
> the epics/config build system be created. This is a very
> capable, easily customized build system. Yet people
> are continually developing and using their own. Or, alternately,
> the multitude of variables are misused because their purpose is
> a mystery. All because it is basically completely undocumented.
> If I had a nickel for every time I was asked where the
> doc for it is...
> 
> I think embedding the doc for this in some other epics manual is
> not a good idea. The build system is an extremely useful
> product in and of itself. I take it with me wherever I go.
> I think it should be actively documented and advertised.
> 

I wholeheartedly agree with Claude.  I like the build system, but
looking for places to add flags such as "-g" can be a nightmare.
I simple document that explains the basic principles and what I
would commonly set or modify in my makefiles would be most helpful.
The number of files in the config direction is enormous; finding
information from the config files can be frustrating.

A simple, separate document could not possibly take that long to write
and would prove most valuable (at least for me).  Even putting an
html version of the doc right in the config directory would be good,
this way I could find it easily and know that it exists.

Jim Kowalkowski
630/252-9410
[email protected]

Argonne National Laboratory
Advanced Photon Source - Accelerator Systems Division
Controls and Computing

Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System

Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System