Re: [Automake-NG] [PATCH] [ng] silent: simplify by taking advantage of GNU make semantics

[Dave Hart]

On Mon, Jun 18, 2012 at 9:54 AM, Stefano Lattarini
<address@hidden> wrote:
> In particular, taking advantage of the fact that, in GNU make, command
> line override of variables is propagated to recursive make invocations.
>
> This change offers us a small but nice size reduction bot in Automake's
> code and in the generated Makefiles.  It also improves the API to define
> custom silent "tags", by turning it from:
>
>    pkg_verbose = $(pkg_verbose_$(V))
>    pkg_verbose_ = $(pkg_verbose_$(AM_DEFAULT_V))
>    pkg_verbose_0 = @echo PKG-GEN $@;
>
> to the slightly clearer:
>
>    pkg_verbose = $(pkg_verbose/$(V))
>    pkg_verbose/1 =
>    pkg_verbose/0 = @echo PKG-GEN $@;

While the second form is slightly simpler, as a package maintainer I
doubt I'd praise the elegance of the new approach while I'm reworking
formerly functional code broken by this change.

Think about what the term "API" means:  A stable interface offered to
third parties.  Improving the API in my book would mean offering the
simpler alternative _without_ breaking the existing API.  This quest
for simplicity in Automake-NG implementation is in practice producing
another barrier to those considering a move from Automake to
Automake-NG.

Cheers,
Dave Hart