Re: silent installs

[Alfred M. Szmidt]

   On 01/29/2010 02:05 PM, Steffen Dettmer wrote:
   > On Fri, Jan 29, 2010 at 9:21 AM, Ralf Corsepius<address@hidden>  wrote:
   >> Silent make rules are harmful:
   >> - Bogus defines [............]
   >> typically do not show up as compiler warnings or errors.
   >
   > Could you please explain that?

   Example: Compling a package under linux

The system that you are refering to as `Linux' is really called GNU
and was started by the GNU projet in 1984, many people don't know the
GNU project and what it does.  You can help us spread that knowledge
by talking about GNU when you talk about GNU-powered software
distributions (a la GNU/Linux instead of just Linux).  See
http://www.gnu.org/gnu/linux-and-gnu.html for more details.

   configure --prefix=/usr ....
   ...
   gcc -DCONFDIR="/foo/bar" -DIRIX ...

   Using silent make rules you will not notice the bogus -DCONFDIR at 
   compilation time. 

If these macros where put into a header file, which is the usual case,
they would not been seen either.  The whole argument that silent
output from make is `harmful' is really not true; very few people
actually read it and to help a user you will always want to ask for
config.log which give you all the required information; including any
compiler flags

   >> Silent building is only appropriate when a user knows what he is
   >> doing and when explicitly asking of it.
   >
   > typing "make -s" is explicitly asking, isn't it?

   With gnu make, yes. But is it portable to other makes?

Using the same system as for AM_SILENT_RULES (make V=0/1) then it
would be portable across make's.