Re: Increasing regularity of build systems
On Tue, Sep 14, 1999 at 03:24:31PM -0400, Michael Alan Dorman wrote:
>
> ./configure introduces a lot of system dependency in its generated
> files, and _much_ of the variation is, at least on debian boxes,
> architecture related. While I'm sure a sufficiently motivated
> maintainer could probably carefully factor out all the arch-dependent
> stuff, and we might could push through a standard location for
> building all packages so that my use of ~/prog/package-name (and its
> subsequent introduction into makefiles and the like) wouldn't break
> the compile on your machine, but then when the package gets updated
> upstream, we have to reapply all the patches, etc.
>
> I think you'd see development slow to a crawl.
>
> Or maybe I'm just being dense and latching onto your mention of
> ./configure, and not addressing what you're actually talking about.
I think he means that debian/rules should not run configure everytime you
execute "debian/rules build". I personally hate porting something, and
everytime the build dies and you need to change something small to try and
fix it, starting the build runs configure again.
These builds need something like:
if [ ! -f stamp-configure ]; then \
./configure ; \
touch stamp-configure; \
fi
...in the build rule. This helps out porters a great deal, and I try to
setup all of mine in a similar way.
Ben
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