From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Junio C Hamano Subject: Re: [PATCH 0/4] More tests for hand-written configure (resend) Date: Fri, 07 Jul 2006 12:40:46 -0700 Message-ID: <7vhd1tw6dd.fsf@assigned-by-dhcp.cox.net> References: <20060707162513.25746.57374.stgit@leonov.stosberg.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Cc: git@vger.kernel.org X-From: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Fri Jul 07 21:41:31 2006 Return-path: Envelope-to: gcvg-git@gmane.org Received: from vger.kernel.org ([209.132.176.167]) by ciao.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1FywCS-0003np-6q for gcvg-git@gmane.org; Fri, 07 Jul 2006 21:41:16 +0200 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1751230AbWGGTkt (ORCPT ); Fri, 7 Jul 2006 15:40:49 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1751238AbWGGTkt (ORCPT ); Fri, 7 Jul 2006 15:40:49 -0400 Received: from fed1rmmtao01.cox.net ([68.230.241.38]:51685 "EHLO fed1rmmtao01.cox.net") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751230AbWGGTks (ORCPT ); Fri, 7 Jul 2006 15:40:48 -0400 Received: from assigned-by-dhcp.cox.net ([68.4.9.127]) by fed1rmmtao01.cox.net (InterMail vM.6.01.06.01 201-2131-130-101-20060113) with ESMTP id <20060707194047.GUHZ22974.fed1rmmtao01.cox.net@assigned-by-dhcp.cox.net>; Fri, 7 Jul 2006 15:40:47 -0400 To: Dennis Stosberg User-Agent: Gnus/5.110006 (No Gnus v0.6) Emacs/21.4 (gnu/linux) Sender: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Precedence: bulk X-Mailing-List: git@vger.kernel.org Archived-At: Dennis Stosberg 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.