Re: Get rid of libtool? [was Re: Makefile problems]

[Tom Tromey]

>>>>> "Nathanael" == Nathanael Nerode <address@hidden> writes:

[ moved to the automake list ]

Nathanael> On the other hand, the better I understand Automake, the
Nathanael> more I HATE it.

Over 1 million now served.

I found your message pretty irritating, since it is just a bunch of
assertions without any real supporting evidence.  Please help us make
tools better; random "automake sucks" flamage is pretty useless.

Nathanael> It makes it waaay easier to generate nasty, stupid
Nathanael> dependency problems.

Can you explain this comment?

Nathanael> It does a poor job of getting dependencies right

And this one?  I think automake does a very good job here.  We've
spent a lot of time on dependency tracking.

Nathanael> I don't see an easy way of fixing most of the problems even
Nathanael> with a complete rewrite (although some of the functionality
Nathanael> could be better implemented with a few command-line
Nathanael> enhancements to 'make'... but that's a complicated other
Nathanael> story).

The whole point is not to require changes to make.  If we could do
that, then we could eliminate a lot of automake.  Or just use a better
tool to start with.

Nathanael> Most of the really irritating repetitive stuff which
Nathanael> automake abstracts away can be better done using pattern
Nathanael> rules

What do you mean?  Do you mean GNU-make-specific % rules?
We can't use those.

Nathanael> An example of this is the way *Automake* uses libtool.  Not
Nathanael> libtool itself, but the way automake uses it.

Please explain.

Tom