Re: Automake violations of the gnu coding conventions

[Bob Proulx]

Are we talking about one of your own projects?  Or are we talking
about other projects that you are trying to build?

K. Richard Pixley wrote:
> Bob Proulx wrote:
> > Someone who is simply building from the generated Makefiles never
> > needs to have automake installed.  Only a developer who is
> > modifying the automake source files would need automake installed.
>
> But that's my point.  With the defaults as they are now there are many 
> "normal" cases where automake is required.

But the cases that you have described so far are not normal cases.
They all entail doing something that can be reasonably avoided.

> > Obviously from the questions you are asking you are experiencing a
> > specific problem.  Could you share some details?
>
> I have already done so.  The actual use case is somewhat more involved 
> than is necessary to explain the problem.

Reading your mail carefully I note you say that 'cp' does not retain
file timestamps.  Instead of using 'cp -r' use 'cp -a' to preserve the
timestamps.  An easy problem to avoid.  Or "correct" them later by
updating all of the timestamps.  Either works.

If someone is trying to build from source control then they have
assumed the role of a developer.  Developers are expected to have the
required development tools available.  Almost certainly in the case of
checking out pristine source from version control many developer tools
will be needed for most projects.  This goes beyond automake and
includes gettext, flex, bison, gperf, texinfo, etc.

Bob