[Hackage] #475: don't describe build actions that are no-ops

[Hackage]

#475: don't describe build actions that are no-ops
------------------------------+---------------------------------------------
  Reporter:  duncan           |        Owner:           
      Type:  enhancement      |       Status:  new      
  Priority:  normal           |    Milestone:  Cabal-1.8
 Component:  Cabal library    |      Version:  1.6.0.1  
  Severity:  normal           |     Keywords:           
Difficulty:  easy (<4 hours)  |   Ghcversion:           
  Platform:                   |  
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 from http://trevion.blogspot.com/2008/11/cabal-is-fine-piece-of-
 software.html

 This is actually an excellent review. It's funny and spot on. It picks up
 some of the real things that people notice but that Cabal hackers are
 blind to because we're too used to the way things are.

 One thing it picks up on:

 {{{
 Preprocessing executables for interpreter-0.1...
 Building interpreter-0.1..
 }}}

 The commentator notes
 {{{
 This actually illustrates a couple of nice things. First, I
 really like the message about preprocessing executables. I
 haven’t said anything about preprocessors in my Cabal
 metadata file, but Cabal is helping me to realize that
 perhaps I could have. Or perhaps it’s telling me that it has
 to do some preprocessing as part of the build, even if I
 haven’t told it about preprocessors. This is good knowledge
 to have about the build process
 }}}

 Indeed, we could perhaps avoid printing the status message
 unconditionally, but instead only do it if we're actually going to be
 doing any work.

 {{{
 Second, I’d like to highlight the line “building
 interpreter-0.1”. Cabal is actually building a file called
 dist\build\interp\interp.exe. But it’s not confusing me with
 that – rather, it’s reminding me of the project name and
 version I defined in my Cabal metadata file!
 }}}

 Perhaps we should make the configure message say the package name, but
 then for executables and libs say the name of the library or executable.

-- 
Ticket URL: <http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/hackage/ticket/475>
Hackage <http://haskell.org/cabal/>
Hackage: Cabal and related projects