Re: Emacs vista build failures

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: David Kastrup <address@hidden>
> Date: Tue, 22 Jul 2008 16:04:03 +0200
> Cc: Johannes Weiner <address@hidden>, address@hidden
> 
> REM Get current directory
> set targetdir=%CD%
> 
> REM %targetdir% has to be postprocessed since if it is a root directory,
> REM it will end in a backslash which escapes a double quote when calling
> REM Java.  So we append a single dot in that case.
> for %%l in (%targetdir%) do if "%%~pnl" == "\" (set targetdir=%targetdir%.)
> 
> call ant.bat -Dinstaller.path="%targetdir%"
> 
> 
> Can you imagine how many mandays get wasted on utterly appalling
> workarounds like that?  And of course, this just works on one version of
> cmd.exe, and might break on another.
> 
> Bourne shell programming is _much_ more consistent, regular, and simple.

Again, you are approaching a non-Posix platforms with Posix-centric
perspective.  Shell programming is a Posix idea.  If you want a
program, write it in a programming language, not in shell.

> This list certainly is not the place to discuss the presence or absence
> of merits in Windows.  But if we get a bit more Emacs-specific and you
> take a look at conditional code being used when under all sort of UNIX
> systems and code being used when under w32, then take a good look at
> what code is more complex and awkward.

I already explained why: the original code was designed with Posix
functionality in mind, that's why it doesn't port easily to anything
else.