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Sake - A Squeak based make-like tool
Last updated at 5:48 pm UTC on 5 March 2007

Mentor

Brian Rice (Google Account: BrianTRice)

Project Outline


Create a Squeak-based build system as a library and tool.

Technical Details


Squeak can run scripts through OSProcess, but it doesn't have a framework for declarative building of various targets that is customarily exhibited by Make or Ant. Ruby's Rake demonstrates an interesting approach to this problem that could be implemented in Squeak readily.

The implementation goal of this project is to translate the idioms and features of Rake into a library comparable to SUnit in terms of coding style and level of implementation, then a "mini-language" on top of that which makes it convenient to add build systems to other projects for their own purposes, with some usage examples, and finally (optionally) a graphical tool for running build processes with possibly some interaction and logging interfaces. ToolBuilder is suggested but not necessary for the tool phase.

Benefits to the Student


The student would gain familiarity with the requirements and logic and algorithms involved in a reliable and sensible declarative and configurable build system. They would be able to explore this in a live-objects environment which could offer opportunities for innovation in this area. They would also gain experience writing a simple, stateful user interface in Morphic or ToolBuilder.

Benefits to the Community


This would provide Squeak with a declarative, idempotent build system for external files and programs as well as other Squeak images, that also integrates well with other Squeak code and libraries. It could even offer new facilities for building Squeak images using the Installer tool.