Hack Builder
Originally by: Warren Turkal

The hack builder is a software build system. It is focused on building
"statically" linked software. I quote "statically" as I am using it as a
concept in that some of the software is not linked statically in the
technical sense. For example, python "binaries" will be built into a
virtualenv. As such, the packages being built have minimal software library
dependencies when being built.

Currently, the software only supports python software. The python software
project can be built into a Debian package as well.


Code Style:
The code attempts to follow PEP8[1] style as closely as possible. Most of the
documentation style can be found in the Google Python Style Guide[2].


Hacking on the Code:
To get the code, one must use repo[3]. Once you have repo in your path, make
an empty directory, change to that directory, and type the following commands:
$ repo init -u git://github.com/digg/repo-manifest.git
$ repo sync

To build the code the first time, I have created a boostrap build script. From
the root of the repo hierarchy, type the following commands to execute it:
$ cd digg/dev/hackbuilder/bootstrap_build
$ ./build.sh clean && ./build.sh build

Instead of "build", you can use "binary" as the target for the build.sh
command to make a debian binary package. Once the software is built look type
the following to execute the hack builder tool:
$ cd ../ (changing into hackbuilder directory)
$ ../../../bootstrap-build/digg/dev/hackbuilder/-hack/python_virtualenv/bin/hack


Getting Started:
The hack command has subcommands to perform various actions. Here's a list:
* help - get help for the hack tool and it's subcommands
* build - builds a target
* clean - cleans files created by the hack tool

The first thing you might want to do it build something. From the hackbuilder
source directory, you can type the following to build the hackbuilder with the
bootstrapped build you created with the above command:
$ ../../../bootstrap-build/digg/dev/hackbuilder/-hack/python_virtualenv/bin/hack clean
$ ../../../bootstrap-build/digg/dev/hackbuilder/-hack/python_virtualenv/bin/hack build :hack

These commands will build the hackbuilder with the bootstrapped hackbuilder.
You will find the resulting binary in
../../../hack-build/digg/dev/hackbuilder/-hack/python_virtualenv/bin/hack. The
binary is constructed according to build rules in the HACK_BUILD file.


Current Status:
I currently consider this code to be of alpha quality. While no specific
support is currently offered, bugs will be addressed on a best effort basis. I
hope you find this software useful.

[1]http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0008/
[2]http://google-styleguide.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/pyguide.html
[3]http://source.android.com/source/downloading.html