Re: CFO: Why ./configure?

From: Thomas Richter (thor_at_cleopatra.math.tu-berlin.de)
Date: 09/12/03 

Date: 12 Sep 2003 13:14:21 GMT

Hi,

>> "autoconf" can handle more cases than you could handle manually. There
>> are many things to be concerned about, and some people already knew about.
>> Thus, even though I might know that on some IRIX versions I must include
>> <bstring.h> to get a memcpy, others might not. That's a kind of idea
>> autoconf can handle for you: It "imports knowledge" of the build process
>> into your own tools. Let others help you here with their knowledge.
>> Thus, whereas autoconf surely introduces more possible errors - nobody
>> is perfect - it can handle more problem cases than you could by hand.

> wouldn't it be easier to create a header memory.h ( as a symlink or a
> copy of bstring.h ) to gain the compatibility?

No, I'm not the administrator of the system. I can't do that. Instead,
I put a "string.h" into my sources that includes "config.h" which was
generated by configure from "config.h.in". "string.h" checks by testing
for the defines in config.h whether I need to include bstring.h or not.

> centralized means for me: one makefile, no recursion of makefiles, no
> helper tools (automake), just 'make' is enough.

> i think this makefile should work on all unix/linux platforms:

> cc = icc (or gcc)
> cflags = -g -O1
> libs = -L./libs -ldl

> ${cc} ${cflags} -c -o ./object.o ./src/file.c
> ${cc} -shared -o ./libfoo.so ${libs} ./obbject.o

> so why autotools?

Because that makefile doesn't work here. Where's the X11 include I need?
Where's the ncurses include I need? How or why does this call trigger
makes in all the sub-directories? Where's the documentation created?
Where's the archive packed?

You can also call the compiler by hand, but why?

>> Except that they won't be able to. What burden do you want to put onto the
>> shoulders of your users? Edit the makefiles? Ok, fine. Being sarcastic, I
>> could also say that the users could equally well write the program
>> themselves. (-;

> i think it's not harder to edit a makefile as to run "./configure
> --prefix=/home/tom/root"

It seems you haven't seen complex software projects yet. The makefiles
here do more than just to build programs, and they do more than just to
put a single executable into a specific disk location. They're not so easy
to follow, and not five-liners.

So long,
        Thomas

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