Re: A unified project root interface

[Jorgen Schaefer]

On Sat, 16 Mar 2013 23:59:39 +0100
David Engster <address@hidden> wrote:

> I think our C/C++ project wrapper is a
> good example for this, where you define a project like this:
> 
>    (ede-cpp-root-project "NAME"
>          :file "~/myproject/Makefile"
>          :include-path '( "/include" "../include" "/c/include" )
>          :system-include-path '( "/usr/include/c++/3.2.2/" )
>          :spp-table '( ("OS_GNU_LINUX" . "1") ))
> 
> I'd argue this is already similar to how projects are defined in
> project-root.el.

I have no idea what project-root.el is or why anyone brought it up. The
two project libraries I linked in the first post of this thread and
described therein do not require such cumbersome extra effort.

In the normal case, I do not want to define a project at all.

As an extension author, I just want to call (project-root) in my
extension and have it magically return a directory that's the root
directory of the project.

As a user, I just want to Have It Work[tm] when opening a file without
me defining anything. At most, if all possible heuristics fail, I can
live with being asked for the project root directory.

Everything more than this, and I'll just ignore that "feature" because
it's cumbersome to use.

Every further feature is "nice to have", and only useful if it does not
require more effort than the above.

And every requirement for "project" the above does not cover (like,
say, multiple project roots) is a fringe use I can happily live without,
as apparently can a bunch of other extension authors.

The problem I raised in this thread is that too many packages write
their own solution because using any of the possible standard solutions
is too cumbersome. Saying "there is a cumbersome standard solution"
does not solve the problem.

Regards,
        -- Jorgen