Re: [dwm] autoconf

On Thu, Mar 19, 2009 at 06:09:33PM +0100, Nico Golde wrote:
> Hi,
> * Kurt Van Dijck <kurt.van.dijck_AT_eia.be> [2009-03-19 17:53]:
> > I'm in the process of cross-compiling dwm. I understand the idea of
> > having a config.mk for this, but it is not the easiest.
> > Since I had to fix some other packets too, I learned myself to setup a
> > minimal autoconf. This allows one to do:
> > ./configure && make && make install
> >
> > Since dwm is distributed as a source package and not binary, I suspect
> > this can mean a serious improvement.
>
> EPIC FAIL!
> Please read the FAQ: http://suckless.org/common/faq
I agree as a developer. a 'config.mk' approach, I understand.
I didn't even walk all FAQ's to get the job done :-)

As a user, I'm not that convinced. ./configure is easier to explain that
Makefile.

What I learned from the automake/autoconf docs is:
1) autoconf allows easy test, suitable for users.
2) ./configure script is big :-(
3) automake starts the real mess, using libtool etc.

I chose (for this & other projects) to stick to my own hand-crafted
Makefiles, supported by autoconf.
Some advantages of this approach:
* The core Makefile(.in) is still readable as developer.
* applying different --prefix, --host or DESTDIR gets easier.
* configuring is done as any other package.
* testing for necessary libraries gets easier on different platforms.
  Not all systems use glibc. MacOSX wants -liconv for iconv support,
  .... . Those are reasons I started with this 'limited' autoconf
  support.

Applying this to dwm didn't seem like huge job.

Kurt

>
> Cheers
> Nico
> --
> Nico Golde - http://www.ngolde.de - nion@jabber.ccc.de - GPG: 0x73647CFF
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Received on Thu Mar 19 2009 - 23:15:53 UTC