Re: --with-foo= vs. FOO=${FOO:-foo_default}

[mcmahill]

On Mon, 2 Sep 2002, Harlan Stenn wrote:

> I could be mistaken but I think some of us are talking about "how do we
> specify the default for X", and not "do we specify X at compile time or at
> runtime".

In my case I'm talking about how do I set some defaults at compile time.
They can (i think they all can, i'm just migrating the build from imake to
auto* and am not the program author) be later overridden by X resources.  

> I would much rather "seed" the default values via configure switches than
> have to take the author's choice and then have to either wiggle config files
> on every installation, or wiggle the source distribution.
> 
> As for "don't use --enable or --with for anything except what they are
> documented for", I have a recollection of RMS telling me that the NTP
> configure process was Huge and I shouldn't have used --enable and --with the
> way I did.  I asked him what I should do instead, and I don't believe we
> ever found alternatives that would be acceptable.
> 
> It may be wrong (or merely suboptimal) to abuse --with and --enable, but if
> the only tool you have is a hammer...

This is unfortunately how I feel.  I hate to abuse the --with flags, but
setting 27 different environment variables or editing a config file feels
like a step back.

Thanks for all the comments.

-Dan