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Re: GNU Make Extensions


From: NightStrike
Subject: Re: GNU Make Extensions
Date: Wed, 10 Dec 2008 10:46:28 -0500

On Wed, Dec 10, 2008 at 10:35 AM, Bob Friesenhahn
<address@hidden> wrote:
> On Wed, 10 Dec 2008, NightStrike wrote:
>
>> If automake has the ability to flatten the += syntax so that
>> non-portable make advances can be used, why can't the same logic apply
>> to wildcard usage?  The biggest argument against it that I've heard is
>> that it is a GNU-only option.  However, I've suggested in the past
>> that it'd be great if Automake can just process the wildcard and
>> output the Makefile.in accordingly.  It sounds like my suggestion
>> wasn't that wild afterall if Automake can do this currently for things
>> like +=.
>
> Automake is written in Perl, which is a very powerful scripting language.
>  Of course it could easily be extended to do such a thing.
>
>> When you have a library with 357 source files, the list in Makefile.am
>> becomes unwieldy.
>
> I think that the fear is that the package will accidentally end up with 356
> or 358 source files but that exactly 357 are required. There is the idea
> that software should be constructed by design rather than by accident.

Shouldn't the onus be on me, as the project maintainer, to accept that
risk and craft the wildcards properly?  I for one would wager heavily
that the probability of that being a problem is FAR less than the
current problems of maintaining the source file list.  Doing it
manually has already proven so error-prone as to cause significant
lost time.

What I guess is missing here is that I am not advocating that certain
desirable extensions be *required*, just that they be *available*.




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