Re: Prayertime autotools (again)

[Samy Al Bahra <samy at kerneled dot com>]

On Tue, 23 Dec 2003 12:09:43 -0800 (PST)
Nadim Shaikli <shaikli at yahoo dot com> wrote:

> --- Thamer Mahmoud wrote:
> > 
> > Modified Files:
> > 	Makefile.cvs configure.in 
> > Added Files:
> > 	Makefile.am Makefile.in.old configure.in.old 
> > Removed Files:
> > 	Makefile.in 
> > 
> > Log Message:
> > This make process uses automake. less error prone - more
> > features..etc.

automake provides a framework for LARGE projects with a dozen or more
source code files, where writing your own Makefile is something not so
trivial. automake's simple SOURCES/PROGRAMS/etc... model allows addition
and management of such things easy (ONLY because maintaining your own
Makefile is relatively much more difficult). A small project like this
has no need for automake and the overhead involved with it.

So, what does automake provide to this project? It adds management
over-head, that's all what it does. Not to note the several errors in
the implementation now.

>From Makefile.am
-------------------------------------------------------------------
CFLAGS = -Wall -g -O2
LDADD = -lm
-------------------------------------------------------------------

It is not your job to specify cflags such as -g and -O2, this is up to
the user and not you. Not all users would like -g, not all systems will
execute prayertime with -O2 properly, etc... You cannot blindly assume
-lm is laying around as well, you need to take into consideration
different possible paths into consideration.

> Thamer, the entire process now again doesn't work for me (on solaris)
> and we are pretty much back to where we were prior to the most recent
> minimalistic change (which I very much liked btw since this lib/app
> is small itself).  The amount of files and links created now just
> seems overwhelming and unnecessary.

The automake framework that was written does not take LDFLAGS into
account. The old build framework that I committed checked is the system
was SunOS and added the appropriate linker flags to LDFLAGS. Thamer did
not take advantage of this in his automake files.

> Could we do this ?  Go back to the previous minimalistic autotools
> process and address any concerns you might have (ie. address those
> 'error prone' issues) as well as add whatever required features
> (not sure what those might be).

The old process is much less error prone than the current cumbersome
automake interface. I would like to request the possibility of providing
me with the permission to modify source code in this project, initially,
portability issues (to fully leverage the power of autoconf).

Thamer, could you please state why you did this? and I urge you to take
into consideration other people's thoughts for such courses of action,
it is only your job as maintainer to take the best path. It is probable
someone did things the way they are for a reason.

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| Samy Al Bahra | samy at kerneled dot com |
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