Re: first time automaking question

[Chadwick A. McHenry]

On Thu, 11 Apr 2002, Steve M. Robbins wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 10, 2002 at 02:15:24PM -0500, Sean Finney wrote:
> > On Wed, Apr 10, 2002 at 09:34:48AM +0200, Alexandre Duret-Lutz wrote:
> > > >>> "Sean" == Sean Finney <address@hidden> writes:
> > >  Sean> - ./configure now tests for auto* and makeinfo
> > >
> > >  Sean> is that really necessary?
> > >
> > > Yes.  Automake create Makefiles that know how to rerun the auto*
> > > tools when necessary.  So configure check for them.
> >
> > does this introduce any problems if the target machine doesn't
> > have (or has ancient versions of) auto*?  or, if the auto* isn't
> > found, does it just not implement said functionality?
>
> Yes and no.  You can run into trouble if the target machine has a
> different version (older OR newer!) of autoconf or automake.  Mostly
> this is due to a badly-written macro which is, sadly, rather common.
> ...
>
> You can completely disable these "maintainer rules" in the
> *distributed* makefiles via the AM_MAINTAINER_MODE macro.  Look it up
> in the automake docs.
>

Using AM_MAINTAINER_MODE seems to be a Good Thing, in light of the
potential problems for users, when it is absent. Is there any reason I
_would_not_ want to include it in my configure.am and modify my bootstrap
script to specify '--enable-maintainer-mode'?

<rant>
This macro seems misnamed to me. I'm thinking that generating the auto*
rules _is_ a maintainer mode, as they are potentially dangerous/confusing
to the end user. If they are generated by default, and to disable
generating them (without explicitly asking for them) one should use a rule
named 'AM_DISABLE_MAINTAINER_MODE' or something similar. Chalk this up to
'historic reasons'?
</rant>

...Chad