Re: [PATCH 0/4] More tests for hand-written configure (resend)

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

Dennis Stosberg <dennis@stosberg.net> writes:

> I noticed that the autoconf-based solution has replaced Pasky's
> scripts in the pu branch.  Has a final decision been made?

My preference has been to see both sides battle it out without
forcing me to decide, but...

> I must admit that I'm less convinced today that a hand-written
> configuration script is better than I was yesterday when I started
> to write the tests.

... I started to share the same feeling after Pavel Roskin made
a good point in "git on HP-UX" thread,

    http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/23380/focus=23393

and then after seeing the messages in response to your patch
that used `which` from yesterday.

Shell scripts generated by autoconf are almost unreadable, but
the way how they detect features have been polished in the field
for portability for a long time, and there is no point for us to
spend time reinventing the wheel.  The configure.ac files are
often quite readable even when generated configure scripts are
not.

So, I would not veto the use of autoconf, as long as configure
stays as an _optional_ mechanism to manage config.mak.gen that
is used by the main Makefile.  The users for whom the configure
script breaks for whatever reason can work it around by simply
not using it, instead of having to debug either the unreadable
configure or having to install autoconf and debug configure.ac
just to build git.

The _optional_ is really the key word here.  So "make clean" to
clean autoconf intermediate files is good, "make realclean" to
remove "configure" script generated from "configure.ac" is also
good, but if "make rpm" by default runs "configure", then that
is BAD and I would be very unhappy.

I could probably live with "make rpm-using-configure", though.