> What happens if the configure command fails? config.status will be > there, all right, but the configure target will not have completed > successfully. So if you use config.status as a stamp file, you'll be > stuffed. > No. If configure fails, config.status won't be created. Only config.log gets created in that case. ,----[ configure.ac ] | AC_INIT(configure.ac) | AC_ERROR(foo) | AC_OUTPUT() `---- Try this one, this will fail, and config.status will not be created. If you mean a silent fail, which did not find a library, but continued, that will happen with the configure-stamp approach too. > > Second, the comment above the ./configure line - as added > > by dh_make, I presume - does not bear any value once the template is > > filled out, since you don't have to add anything anymore. Compare this > > with TeX markup in a printed book, it's almost the same thing. > > Comments are good. Compare this to commenting your source code; after > all, once you've written it, you don't need to know what it does any > more, right? So this comment is a bit redundant -- big deal: it could > help someone one day. Compare this: /* FIXME: Write here code that does this stuff. */ void foo() {} With this: /* This code makes foo look like bar. */ void foo() { /* FOO is a global variable, used to baz things around, * BAR does something else */ FOO=BAR; } There's a distinction between comments that were put in to describe what a given code does, or should do, and comments that are only relevant until the necessary code is added. Do you leave FIXMEs around, after you fixed the bug? > > Another bad example is this: > > > > ,---- > > | # Build architecture-independent files here. > > | binary-indep: build install > > | # We have nothing to do by default. > > `---- > > Good example. I recently changed a package from arch: all to arch: > any and back again, and was very appreciative to have these comments > lying around. And as a policy maintainer, I do know this stuff well; > nevertheless, having reminders is very good (and even then, I forgot > things). In that case, a tiny rewording would help, at least for the second comment, see my reasoning the original mail. For the first, I think the name of the target already explains what it does..
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