Re: reformatted GNUmakefile pushed to staging

[David Kastrup]

Werner LEMBERG <address@hidden> writes:

> Folks,
>
>
> as discussed some weeks ago, I've now pushed the reformatted
> GNUmakefile to staging.  There are only whitespace changes.

Is there anything wrong with our review system?  If you feel there is,
how about at least posting the patch for review on the list before
pushing?

Things like

+TOPDOC_TXT_FILES = \
+  $(addprefix $(top-build-dir)/Documentation/topdocs/$(outdir)/, \
+              $(addsuffix .txt, \
+                          $(TOPDOC_FILES)))
+IN_FILES := \
+  $(call src-wildcard, \
+         *.in)

are quite beyond the scope of discussion and I don't see that they
improve either readability nor reduce the potential for merge conflicts.
And things like

+STEPMAKE_TEMPLATES = \
+  po \
+  install \
+  toplevel 
+LOCALSTEPMAKE_TEMPLATES = \
+  lilypond

are ugly without an additional empty line.  Stuff like

-       $(MAKE) local-dist $(distdir)
+       $(MAKE) local-dist \
+               $(distdir)

makes little sense: why split a simple command into two lines if after
the split both the first as well as the second line are special (one
starts with $(MAKE) and the other does not end with \)?  Absolutely no
gain in readability or mergeability.

And that's just from glancing over the first few lines.  More important:
you are changing a core part of the build system.  You _intend_ this
change not to contain any functional differences, but a rather thorough
way to be reasonably sure that you were successful in every detail is
our regtest system.  Which does not just check, from a clean slate, that
everything compiles, but also that the results from the regtests stay
the same.

The staging merge does not guarantee the same.  It is, speaking in the
words of chairman Percival, a safety net, not a trampoline.

-- 
David Kastrup