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diff --git a/doc/user/preface.sgml b/doc/user/preface.sgml index 82ea44a..bba7f49 100644 --- a/doc/user/preface.sgml +++ b/doc/user/preface.sgml @@ -23,63 +23,182 @@ --> - <para> + <para> - X + XXX - </para> + </para> - <section> - <title>Why &SCons;?</title> + <section> + <title>Why &SCons;?</title> - <para> + <para> - X + XXX - </para> + </para> - </section> + </section> - <section> - <title>History</title> + <section> + <title>&SCons; Principles</title> - <para> + <para> - X + By default, &SCons; guarantees a correct build + regardless of what end case you may have. - </para> + </para> - </section> + <para> - <section> - <title>Conventions</title> + &SCons; makes it easy to speed up the build through + optimization options that trade off + guaranteed correctness for speed. - <para> + </para> - X + <para> - </para> + &SCons; tries to do as much for you out of the box as reasonable. - </section> + </para> - <section> - <title>Acknowledgements</title> + </section> - <para> + <section> + <title>History</title> - X + <para> - </para> + &SCons; originated with a design + that was submitted to the Software Carpentry + design competition in 2000. - </section> + </para> - <section> - <title>Contact</title> + <para> - <para> + &SCons; is the direct descendant + of a Perl utility called &Cons;. + &Cons; in turn based some of its ideas on &Jam;, + a build tool from Perforce Systems. - X + </para> - </para> + </section> - </section> + <section> + <title>Conventions</title> + + <para> + + XXX + + </para> + + </section> + + <section> + <title>Acknowledgements</title> + + <para> + + &SCons; would not exist without a lot of help + from a lot of people, + many of whom may not even be aware + that they helped or served as inspiration. + So in no particular order, + and at the risk of leaving out someone: + + </para> + + <para> + + First and foremost, + &SCons; owes a tremendous debt to Bob Sidebotham, + the original author of the classic Perl-based &Cons; tool + which Bob first released to the world back around 1996. + Bob's work on Cons classic provided the underlying architecture + and model of specifying a build configuration + using a real scripting language. + My real-world experience working on Cons + informed many of the design decisions in SCons, + including the improved parallel build support, + making Builder objects easily definable by users, + and separating the build engine from the wrapping interface. + + </para> + + <para> + + Greg Wilson was instrumental in getting + &SCons; started as a real project + when he initiated the Software Carpentry design + competition in February 2000. + Without that nudge, + marrying the advantages of the Cons classic + architecture with the readability of Python + might have just stayed no more than a nice idea. + + </para> + + <para> + + The entire &SCons; team have been + absolutely wonderful to work with, + and &SCons; would be nowhere near as useful a + tool without the energy, enthusiasm + and time people have contributed over the past few years. + The "core team" + of Chad Austin, Anthony Roach, Charles Crain, and Steve Leblanc + have been great about reviewing my (and other) changes + and catching problems before they get in the code base. + Technically, + Anthony's outstanding and innovative work on the tasking engine + has given &SCons; a vastly superior parallel build model, + and Charles has been the master of the crucial Node infrastructure. + &SCons; has received contributions + from many other people, of course: + Matt Balvin (extending long command-line support on Win32), + Michael Cook (avoiding losing signal bits from executed commands), + Derrick 'dman' Hudson (), + Alex Jacques (work on the Win32 scons.bat file), + Stephen Kennedy (performance enhancements), + Lachlan O'Dea (SharedObject() support for masm + and normalized paths for the WhereIs() function), + Jeff Petkau (fixes for CacheDir and other areas), + Zed Shaw (Append() and Replace() environment methods), + Terrel Shumway (build and test fixes, as well as the SCons Wiki), + sam th (dynamic checks for utilities) + and Moshe Zadke (Debian packaging). + + </para> + + <para> + + Thanks to Peter Miller + for his splendid change management system, &Aegis;, + which has provided the &SCons; project + with a robust development methodology from day one, + and which showed me how you could + integrate incremental regression tests into + a practical development cycle + (years before eXtreme Programming arrived on the scene). + + </para> + + </section> + + <section> + <title>Contact</title> + + <para> + + The best way to contact people involved with SCons, + including the author, + is through the SCons mailing lists. + + </para> + + </section> |