Re: Is a modern build system acceptable for older platforms

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?

--
Bruce Momjian <bruce(at)momjian(dot)us> http://momjian.us
EnterpriseDB http://enterprisedb.com

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