Re: [PATCH/RFC] "Recursive Make considered harmful"

[Junio C Hamano <junkio@cox.net>]

Ryan, I am dropping this patch, at least for now, after keeping
it in the "pu" (proposed updates) branch and using it myself.
There are two complaints from me.

I am used to "make bin=$HOME/bin/i386 install install-tools",
which the patch breaks (I do not want to build docs for myself).
This is minor; I could say "install-bin install-toolsxx"
instead.

I do not deal with RPM packages myself, but guessing by reading
git-core.spec.in, I think it relies on the install target not
touching the documentation, in order for it to be able to build
doc-full and/or doc-less binary packages.  The patch makes
install target to also build and install docs.

The Debian build is not affected because it does not produce
separate git-core and doc-git-core packages[*1*]; probably this
was the reason you did not notice this.

I think what is installed from the toplevel and what comes from
tools/ subdirectory are divided mostly for historical reasons
and nothing else[*2*], and I do not mind the install target
depending on install-bin and install-tools, but I suspect that
binary packaging folks would appreciate to have a separate doc
target that is not done by a normal install.

Speeding up the build procedure by defining dependencies
correctly is a worthy goal.  Personally I feel a low hanging
fruit is in the main Makefile, before worrying about the make
recursion.  Many things are in libgit.a and when I touch
something only relevant to small number of things, say
csum-file.c, all "git-%: %.c" programs are recompiled and
relinked, even most of them do not link with csum-file.o (this
particular one is only used by git-pack-objects, by the way).

[Footnote]

*1* Which, BTW, would be the Debian way, if I am not mistaken.

*2* Although one _could_ argue that tools/ is primarily meant
for "project lead" role users who accept and incorporate patches
obtained via e-mails.