Re: silent build rules (was: GNU M4 1.4.13 released (stable))

[Bob Friesenhahn]

On Wed, 1 Apr 2009, Ralf Wildenhues wrote:

> * Eric Blake wrote on Wed, Apr 01, 2009 at 08:52:36PM CEST:
> > According to Bob Friesenhahn on 4/1/2009 12:40 PM:
> > > It seems that I will need to permanently define and export the arbitrary
> > > variable 'V' in my shell environment in order to avoid confusion later
> > > since I won't know how a build will behave until I type 'make'.  That
> > > leaves 25 more single-letter variables for my own use.
>
> The rationale for keeping V was that users accustomed to the Linux build
> system would not have to relearn.  Maybe that is not such a good
> rationale: those who build the kernel regularly are hardly the least
> experienced users.

More significantly, GNU users are not restricted to the Linux kernel 
or having any Linux experience at all.  What feels normal for a Linux 
user may be bizarre for a non-Linux user.

My opinion is that if this mode is optional that it should default to 
"off" and that an action taken by the user (dot file, environment 
variable, configure option) to declare a personal preference can be 
used to trigger the Linux mode.  Perhaps additional build modes would 
be contributed in the future.

> > > Hopefully it won't alter the behavior of other scripts or builds.
>
> As I wrote off-list already, unless you use the 'silent-rules' option
> for your packages, your code should be built as always.

This new m4 release is the first package I have seen with this 
automake "Linux mode".  I checked it for a special automake option and 
did not find it so I assume that it was provided when m4 was manually 
bootstrapped.

> > the default verbosity level that they are comfortable with.  Something
> > like './configure --disable-silent-rules' to request the V=1 behavior?

It is wrong to change the default from the convention used by GNU 
packages for at least 20 years.  GNU packages should all build the 
same by default.  This year's package should build similar (by 
default) to last-year's package.

Users of complex packages like my own would suffer severely if they 
build in Linux mode by default.  Users of simple stand-alone packages 
like 'm4' are unlikely to suffer.

> This is an open problem, and mentioned here:
> <http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.sysutils.automake.patches/3408>
> Suggestions welcome.

A configure flag to set the user-preferred default is reasonable, as 
long as the default is the traditional "GNU" mode.

Bob
--
Bob Friesenhahn
address@hidden, http://www.simplesystems.org/users/bfriesen/
GraphicsMagick Maintainer,    http://www.GraphicsMagick.org/