Bug#88029: allow rules file to be non-makefile

[Josip Rodin <joy@cibalia.gkvk.hr>]

On Thu, Mar 01, 2001 at 01:12:54AM +0000, Julian Gilbey wrote:
> > > But one is much less likely to do that: there may be the odd line of
> > > code in shoop, but to actually warp the makefile into shoop would seem
> > > like hard work.
> > 
> > Considering that make just runs the commands through shell, I wouldn't bet
> > on it...
> 
> Remember that every line is passed to a separate invocation of
> /bin/sh.

There's always foo; \
bar; \
baz

> > > If someone is going to go to the effort of writing rules in a system other
> > > than make, they're likely to want to do something a bit bizarre, and
> > > that's where things get hairy.
> > 
> > Bizarre? The next upload of maildrop will have debian/rules written in plain
> > old shell, check it out, I don't think you'll see anything odd in there.
> > (Feel free to file as many RC bugs you want ;)
> 
> No, that's not really a good way to go about doing things.  Let's come
> to a decision here, then go act on it.  If we can't come up with a
> really good reason why debian/rules MUST be a makefile, then we'll
> change policy and you should feel free to go ahead and write
> debian/rules in sh.  But if we decide that it MUST be a makefile, then
> you should not just ignore policy, for that way lies anarchy (or
> other distros).

I wasn't completely serious :)

> I can't think of a really good reason for insisting, besides the issue
> of readability.

Indeed, and even that's debatable.

I can't seem to think of proper wording to allow non-makefile... perhaps
this:

   This file must be an architecture-independent non-interactive executable
   which has to take the following parameters on the command line and act
   accordingly:

[list of required targets]

The second paragraph about the shebang should be removed. I think it's safe
to assume that you'd make an executable file actually runnable...  Then
again, I'm not sure, maybe this does have to be spelled out since it's in
Policy.

The third paragraph could be moved into a footnote, it's an explanation why
interactive script is a bad thing.

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