EXTRA_PROGRAMS vs. clean

[Akim Demaille]

Sorry if this is a faq, but I have found nothing convincing, excepted
this unanswered message:

     http://sourceware.org/ml/bug-automake/2001/msg00391.html

and

     http://sources.redhat.com/ml/bug-automake/2003/msg00311.html

where adl seems to agree it should be cleaned.

I don't understand why make clean should not clean EXTRA_PROGRAMS.  I
agree EXTRA_PROGRAMS is not hooked on "all", so it makes some sense
not to attach it to "clean".  In fact, Tom extended extra.test in 1996
to include an explicit check that it is not:

http://sources.redhat.com/cgi-bin/cvsweb.cgi/automake/tests/extra.test?annotate=1.2&cvsroot=automake

But I find this inconvenient.

The documentation should at least warn the user about this.

Maybe Tom has an opinion about this?