Usually, "configure" tests for the existence of libraries, headers,
utilities and their usability. But how do you adapt your tests for
different (POSIX-like) systems? Quite a mess if you try to do it
manually for a wider range of OS's. Here comes autoconf. That's but an
example.
Bootstrap here tries to put all the steps before "configure" in one
script. It's a nice practice which helps quite some the installation
process (and, of course, healthier than providing only "configure").
This tells me somebody looked into installation optimization for a wider
range of OS's and I cannot but salute the initiative. :)
Cheers,
CGS
On 11/02/2011 03:50 PM, Timothy Baldridge wrote:
Ah thanks I understand now. Read the install doco and expected to see all the
files there at the start. Appears Releases don't have bootstrap as configure is
already present, which confused me also.
This is something that many OSS programs do. Why? I'm not completely
sure. I think it has to do with the concept that any auto-generated
files should not be put into source control. Since ./configure is
generated by a collection of other tools, it's considered bloat that
would just clutter up the repository. And yeah, the first time I ran
into it, it really confused me as well.
Timothy
