"correct" way of handling several default settings

[mcmahill]

Whats the desired or recommended way to handle setting a bunch of
variables which will turn into defines in a makefile as well as strings in
some documentation and some X11 application default settings?

I was thinking of putting stuff like this in configure.ac:

FOO=${FOO:-some_default}
AC_SUBST(FOO)
BAR=${BAR:-"another default"}
AC_SUBST(BAR)


and then in Makefiel.am, things like

baz_INCLUDES=   address@hidden@

and in baz.ad.in

Bax.something:  @BAR@
Bax.somethingelse:      @FOO@

and in docs.texi.in

blah blah blah, the default is @address@hidden

Is there a better way of doing this?  I doubt that users will want to
override these defaults, but you never know.  Mostly i want to keep the
compiled code, the app default, and the docs consistent.

thanks

-Dan