On 05/01/2013 05:40 AM, Kerrick Staley wrote: > > Automake renamed some macros > These renames has been done *years* ago. And they weren't renaming, really; simply, things that had been implemented in Automake while Autcoconf was dormant were later moved to their proper place (that is, the Autoconf codebase); the renames were due to the fact that Automake uses 'AM_' for the namespace of its macros, while Autoconf uses 'AC_'.
The real problem has been that I've removed the old 'AM_' macros without a proper deprecation period, erroneously thinking that "they have been deprecated for so long in the documentation that all projects have surely stopped using them by now, right?" --- dead wrong I was. > and dropped support for the older versions > (AM_CONFIG_HEADER -> AC_CONFIG_HEADERS > This had already been reverted in the branch-1.13.2 (you'd have probably realized this if you had searched the archives before reporting the issue). I wasn't happy to do this, but the Fedora developers have already applied a similar change to their Automake, and I'd rather avoid divergences between upstream Automake and distro-provided Automake if possible. Now, the use of AM_CONFIG_HEADER will cause a (non-fatal) warning rather than an hard error. > and AM_PROG_MKDIR_P -> AC_PROG_MKDIR_P come to mind). > I don't follow. AM_PROG_MKDIR_P has been deprecated, but not removed. I *tried* to remove it in the master branch, but testing from me and other people showed that doing so would cause a *lot* of pain with Gettext integration, so I reverted the removal before it ever hit a released version. > This is bad because it breaks every single open source project in > existence (break ALL the builds), > As Diego said, this is an exaggeration that doesn't help your point (which is mostly valid BTW). > for reasons > that most developers don't want to have to think about (writing code is > fun; worry about how to build it is less fun). > > I'm sure there were legitimate technical reasons for the renaming, > Yes; see the explanation above about the moving from Automake to Autoconf. > but I think it would've been better overall if you had kept the deprecated > namings indefinitely—a little extra work on your part, but much less stress > for everyone else. Just my 2c worth. > In retrospect I mostly agree. Notice that many of the removed 'AM_' names (those still used in practice by a non-trivial number of projects) will be reintroduced in Automake 1.13.2. Albeit they will trigger non-fatal deprecation warning, to encourage the developers to update their build systems to more modern usages and idioms. Regards, Stefano
