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Re: GNU Make bug report: broken dry-run functionality with sub-make invo


From: Paul Smith
Subject: Re: GNU Make bug report: broken dry-run functionality with sub-make invocations
Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2022 14:03:20 -0400
User-agent: Evolution 3.42.4 (by Flathub.org))

On Fri, 2022-03-18 at 17:48 +0000, Martin Dorey wrote:
> Maybe putting it in the form of a patch on the latest git source will
> help it over the finish line:

I'm OK with adding some short text about this into the man page.  As
David mentions it may be important enough to do that since command
being run by make even when the user gives "-n" could give unexpected
or even unpleasant consequences.

However, in general I want to be clear that the man page is not, and is
not intended to be, user documentation.  It's a reference page.  The
man page is intended for people who ALREADY KNOW how to run make and
write makefiles, but need to quickly remind themselves of some syntax
that might have slipped their mind, and they don't want to have to
search the manual for it.

make and makefiles are entirely too complex a topic to be addressed in
a man page.

If you want to learn about how something works, not just remind
yourself how to use it, you need to be reading the user manual not the
man page.  Everything should be documented in full and understandable
detail in the user manual.

https://www.gnu.org/software/make/manual/html_node/index.html



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