On Wednesday 12 January 2011, Ralf Wildenhues wrote: > * Stefano Lattarini wrote on Wed, Jan 12, 2011 at 07:01:47PM CET: > > On Wednesday 12 January 2011, Юрий Пухальский wrote: > > > Aye, looks like it. > > > > > > I have no objections whatsoever, i just need some method to make it > > > work, because it's my working project:) > > > > > To be honest, I'm starting to agree with Ralf more and more on these > > issues; i.e., just " ... require a decent make ;-)". > > For some setups and projects, yes. I don't think I've ever claimed that > Automake should require GNU make outright. > Not have I suggested (not intentionally at least) you did. Sorry if I made it seem so somehow.
In fact, notice that I wrote (edited emphasis to underline my point): ... And *more than this* -- brace yourself -- *I*'m starting to think that automake should really start supporting only GNU make ... > On the contrary. > > > And more than this -- brace yourself -- I'm starting to think that > > automake should *really* start supporting *only* GNU make (at least > > from version 3.75 or so). > > If you want support for this, then you need to discuss away the > downsides (i.e., convince those _opposed_ to the idea, not the > rest). > Well, that's why I've posted my proposal: to hear from other contributors, maintainers and users what the downsides might be in their opinion, because I honestly can see no relevant one by myself. > The upsides are obvious. > If I'm not deluding myself, most of the contents of my proposal were aimed at showing why I believe that requiring GNU make is a reasonable and sensible policy, not to show what the advantages of such a policy would be -- quoting myself: `` And the gains in terms of maintainability, testability, and possibility of optimization are obvious. '' > I was planing to introduce optional GNU make-specific code, and allowing > to let the user specify "my project requires GNU make anyway", which > would enable Automake to emit better code. Arguably more complex than > requiring GNU make outright, but it wouldn't throw away all the make > portability work that exists in Automake. > Hmm... so you're telling me that "This code should be kept because it had been difficult to write it" is an acceptable rationale? ;-> (BTW, that portability-related work has already and definitely served the purpose of making automake usage more widespread, so I don't think the efforts that went into it would ever be "wasted", even if the code they produced is going to be removed). > But let me rephrase the critique in a poignant way: if you want to > require GNU make anyway, what is your rational to not use quagmire > instead of Automake? > You mean this? <http://code.google.com/p/quagmire/> Well, the fact that it took me ~ 3 minutes to find it with Google is a good answer ... ;-) All kidding aside, is yours a serious question? If yes, I have a serious answer (well, several ones in fact), but I'd rather not take the time to write it down properly unless that's really useful. Thanks, Stefano