Re: Non-recursive make & maintenance issue

[Jirka Hanika]

> In other words, dealing with junk like
> 
> apps_build_postgres_src_build_postgres_SOURCES
> 
> is very tiring and failure prone.  Is there a reason why it can't
> simply be
> 
> apps/build-postgres/src/build-postgres_SOURCES ?

Speaking as a random user, this would only be a win (to me) if the translation
could also be significantly messified to keep your target above distinct from,
say,

apps/build/postgres-src-build/postgres_SOURCES

or if this kind of conflict would be at the very least well diagnosed
and warned about.

But people have to interface automake-generated code with user stuff, and
this is usually done through variables.  I expect a big problem here.

My view is that these (and other) problems disappear if you use a
per-directory Makefile.am; but I also see the benefits (esp. compilation
speed) of a non-recursive Makefile.  So the solution could be to support
generating a single Makefile from multiple Makefile.am's in
subdirectories.  (Just kidding.  But interested in seeing the reasons
why this is nearly impossible.)

Jirka