%% Rich Salz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>> autoconf/automake does not work on Windows
rs> I strongly agree with Geoff that the maintainers will probably
rs> find it easier to maintain three "native" build environments --
rs> Win32, VMS, Posix-like -- than the current scheme where things are
rs> shoe-horned into a really messy like-no-other build environment.
In my experience, autoconf/automake is not really needed on Windows,
VMS, etc.
Autoconf is a reaction to all the thousands of subtle (and
not-so-subtle) differences in UNIX platforms. Whatever else you want to
say about Windows, there is essentially only one version of it.
In GNU make, I support Windows (Windows32), native DOS, Amiga, and VMS
in an autoconf'd/automake'd package. The way this works now is the
people who support those ports take a copy of the full-blown config.h
file and hand-edit it to enable/disable the appropriate settings, then
the file is shipped as config.h-W32 or config.h-VMS (or whatever naming
convention you like--obviously this isn't 8.3 if that matters). Part of
the build on those platforms is to copy the appropriate file to be
"config.h".
Other packages may do things slightly differently.
A couple other notes:
Autoconf is very nice, but automake is truly righteous. It handles all
the messy gunk associated with makefiles: it generates truly portable
makefiles (which is a pain in the rear), it automatically handles
dependency generation and management, and it provides a plethora of
extremely handy make rules, such as ones that automatically create
distribution tarballs (the "distcheck" rule will construct the dist
tarball, then test it by unpacking it in a temporary directory, building
it (in a remote directory so you know that works), running the test
suite, and providing the results).
There will be a major new version of autoconf released "RSN". An
amazing amount of cleanup and demessifying has gone on in this release.
There are betas of this release available.
The downside to autoconf/automake is that you have to either (a) check
in the generated files (configure, Makefile.in, etc.), which is a drag
since these things change all the time, or (b) require everyone wanting
to build from CVS to install the toolset (you need perl, GNU make,
autoconf, automake, and GNU m4--and currently-released versions require
GCC as well; I think the coming-soon versions don't.)
For FVWM we don't check in any generated files, but we have nightly
snapshots automatically generated and placed for download so people who
don't want to install the autoconf toolchain can keep up-to-date on at
least a daily basis.
--
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Paul D. Smith <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> HASMAT--HA Software Methods & Tools
"Please remain calm...I may be mad, but I am a professional." --Mad Scientist
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
These are my opinions---Nortel Networks takes no responsibility for them.
______________________________________________________________________
OpenSSL Project http://www.openssl.org
Development Mailing List [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Automated List Manager [EMAIL PROTECTED]
