RE: problem of giving LOCK to one file

[Joi Ellis]

On Thu, 4 Apr 2002, Kaz Kylheku wrote:

> Why don't you call the central makefile ``Makefile.master'' or something
> like that. Then the users can have a local file called Makefile which
> is not known to CVS, and therefore won't trigger any commits. They can
> still push important changes into Makefile.master. Or teach your
> users about the -f option of make, by which they can select alternate
> makefiles, and about the shell alias command by which they can make
> command line options like ``-f My_Makefile'' sticky. 

It sounds like the Makefile could use some more smarts.  Make supports
variables, and one can override these on the make command line.  If the
makefile is properly written, everyone can use the same file no matter
what their local build root is.

  make BUILD_ROOT=/home/joi/foo

You can even make that part of the shell environment.

We consider the Makefile to be part of the project, and everyone uses
the same copy.  It's just written smart so that stuff which varies local
can be overridden.  Those who can't deal with variables make their own
little launch command.
  
  mymake:
  #!/bin/bash
  export BUILD_ROOT=/home/joi/foo
  make


-- 
Joi Ellis                    Software Engineer
Aravox Technologies          address@hidden, address@hidden

No matter what we think of Linux versus FreeBSD, etc., the one thing I
really like about Linux is that it has Microsoft worried.  Anything
that kicks a monopoly in the pants has got to be good for something.
           - Chris Johnson