[Axiom-developer] noweb tarball

[Waldek Hebisch]

> address@hidden writes:
> 
> | Revision: 517
> |           http://svn.sourceforge.net/axiom/?rev=517&view=rev
> | Author:   whebisch
> | Date:     2007-04-26 03:56:16 -0700 (Thu, 26 Apr 2007)
> | 
> | Log Message:
> | -----------
> | Add back support for noweb tarball.
> 
> I reluctantly removed this, at the very insistance of people here.
> I'm curious of what changed your mind.
> 

First note a subtle differences of former noweb support and the thing
I added back:

1) I added back support for tarball (which in the past seemed to work
   resonably well)
2) The tarball itself is optional: by default configure will use installed
   noweb.  If there is no installed noweb configure will look for tarball
   and if the tarball is present then noweb will be built.  If there is
   no installed noweb and no tarball then configure will stop with error
   message.

Why I added back this code?  I belive that noweb itself should not be
part of Axiom svn repository.  But it is reasonable to create Axiom
"source distribution" which bundles Axiom and all troublesome
prerequisites to make build easier.  The added back code is intended
to help create such distribution.

Let me restate my position: in general I am against putting souces of
prerequisities (especially as tarballs, but unpacked form is also bad)
in Axiom svn repositiry.  Of course, sometimes we want to make an
exception but I do not see any reason in case of noweb.  But this does
not exclude having helper code which make use of prerequisities easier.

-- 
                              Waldek Hebisch
address@hidden