Re: [gnu-prog-discuss] Could automake-generated Makefiles required GNU make?

[Bob Friesenhahn]

On Tue, 22 Nov 2011, Stefano Lattarini wrote:
> >
> Which IMHO would be a "killer benefit" :-)
>
> But now that I think about it, a GNU make-based rewrite might also offer
> better extensibility (if we get the APIs right, that is), and that would
> be a *great* improvement over the current situation, and one which would
> benefit the whole user base (not only the maintainers).

Only Automake maintainers (a diminishingly-small percentage of the 
total user base) care about how easy it is to maintain Automake.  The 
users care about how easy and reliable it is to build the software.

It would be useful to enumerate the user-visible benefits if Automake 
can depend on using GNU make.  Otherwise it is difficult to do a 
cost/benefit analysis from the user perspective.  Can you and others 
please brainstorm a list of benefits (e.g. eliminate external 
'compile' and 'depcomp' scripts with the benefit of better ...)?

Another question is if GNU make is really good enough to warrant this 
sort of change.  A build system which did not need to depend on 
pattern-based recipies and flimsy timestamps and which maintains full 
knowledge of what went into the build should really be the ultimate 
target.  There is little doubt that GNU make is better than portable 
make, but (IMHO) its dated paradigm (shared by all classic 
timestamp-based make tools) is not sufficient to get us where we 
should be.  Some more "out of the box" type thinking is useful.

Bob
--
Bob Friesenhahn
address@hidden, http://www.simplesystems.org/users/bfriesen/
GraphicsMagick Maintainer,    http://www.GraphicsMagick.org/