[bug-gnulib] Re: aux-dir name

[Bruno Haible]

Alexandre,

> I too would like to find a consensual name for this directory.

Yes. If someday gnulib-tool, gettextize, autopoint and libtoolize shall
be merged, it will be very useful to have a common name for the AUX_DIR.

> I didn't understood your point against the word "tool".

A tool is a program that the developer invokes himself, explicitly.
gcc is a tool. automake is a tool.
config.guess, compile, depcomp, ltmain.sh etc. are not tools: the developer
does not invoke them himself.
texinfo.tex is not a tool - it is not even a program.

> is it just that it is too generic?

It is too generic as well: Many packages already have a tools/ directory.

> I could have called it
> buildtools/ or auxtools/, but unfortunately I like short
> directory names.

What is it actually? It's an etc/ directory for build infrastructure.
(Some people may also call it "packaging infrastructure".)

We cannot call it 'build/' because that's a frequently used name for
the build directory (as opposed to the source directory).

> I've disliked this name since the day I saw someone do
>    cd config
>    ls
> looking for configuration files to edit.

Right :-)

> For me, a directory named config/ should be either related to
> configure, or contain configuration file.  Presently the AUX dir
> has almost nothing to do with configure (who only use a couple
> of files therein).

I agree.

>  Bruno> autoconf   - used by clisp, ffcall, rxvt
>
> Could make sense in projects where all the aux scripts come from
> Autoconf.  Otherwise it just brings more confusion to
> unexperienced developers, who are already not able to decide
> whether they should post on address@hidden or address@hidden

I agree as well.

What about 'build-support/' or 'build-aux/'?

Or, since the whole thing is now named the "GNU Build System", how about
'gbs-aux/' or 'gbs-support/' ?

Bruno