Re: RFE: Generating a stub Makefile

[Thien-Thi Nguyen]

() Mark Heily <address@hidden>
() Mon, 25 Jun 2007 23:06:49 -0400

   My intention is to save typing for power users and make it easier for
   novice users to build programs from source. This effectively hides
   the Autoconf/Automake mechanism unless someone wants to pass specific
   options to the configure script.

   Any thoughts?

probably this is not a good idea; power users will not consider having
to type "./configure" such a burden and may very well have other (highly
personalized) methods to save typing.  moreover, configuration is a good
place for power users to feel (and be) powerful, since many options can
be tweaked.

to ease things for a novice, the best thing is to educate rather than
obfuscate, so that their period of noviceness is shortened rather than
prolonged.  typically, i have seen a friendly blurb in README that
includes the ./configure command (a "quick start" mini-script) followed
by instructions on how to dig deeper into the configuration.

when i was a novice, it took but two or three packages to internalize
the concept that configuration is a necessary part of building.  of
course, back then, a configure run of a big package (like emacs) could
take half an hour so that's plenty of time to peruse the rest of the
README -- perhaps time is something novices of today cannot afford.
[insert curmudgeon ramblings here.]  i stand by my previous point,
however; whatever the metric used for cost, the old saw is still
applicable: "you think education is expensive?  try ignorance."

thi