Re: Having generated files in cvs?

[olafBuddenhagen]

Hi,

On Wed, Jan 03, 2007 at 12:55:21PM +0100, Thomas Schwinge wrote:

> On Tue, Jan 02, 2007 at 10:21:14PM +0100, Samuel Thibault wrote:

> > BTW, why is the CVS holding generated files like configure & co?
> > Since we all have variouns versios of autoconf/automake, the cvs
> > diff output is cluttered with useless hooks.
> 
> Correct.  I followed that practice of the previous committers to the
> trees.  It has both advantages and disadvantages.  You listed a
> disadvantage.  An advantage is that we can easily tell people: ``Get
> the `gnumach-1-branch' from cvs and compile that one.'' without having
> to worry if they have suitable versions of the Auto* tools installed.
> I don't know if that is really a strong argument, though.

Indeed, that's the only argument I know of in favor of generated files
in CVS: The proponents of this approach claim that it eases building
from CVS. But it's a very weak point IMHO. It's perfectly reasonable to
expect people building from CVS to have the proper build tools
available. In fact, my experience is that generated files in CVS rather
make it *harder* to build stuff, because of incompatibilities between
different versions of the build tools.

> What are others's opinions?

I strongly dislike generated files in CVS.

-antrik-