Re: [bug-gawk] Question about git build system

[Aharon Robbins]

Hi.

> > If you have bison/autoconf/automake/gettext/makeinfo installed then the
> > easiest way to do that is:
> > 
> >     ./configure && make     # first time
> >     gvim configure.ac       # or emacs, if you must :-)
> >     make
> > 
> > and it all just happens.
> > 
>
> This sometimes works (with the configure script) and sometimes doesn't
> (with other autotool files), but it's probably not worth the trouble of
> fixing it.

This generally works for me.

So, I'll be politically incorrect and state that the Autotools are not
much fun.  Every time I have to invest an hour in upgrading infrastructure,
it's one less, rather precious, hour that I don't have to work on gawk
itself.

I have things working well enough that I don't see any real ROI in polishing
it further.  So yes, things may work better with sed or grep or whatever,
but since (at least until recently), I'm the only one messing with this
stuff, I'm satisfied, and prefer to leave well enough alone.

(It's the same thing with polishing and redoing and polishing and redoing
the commits in git.  I personally don't care that my commit history
isn't perfect.  I am careful to commit only one related set of changes
at a time. [ I did learn that lesson. ]  But otherwise, if I left out
some files in commit N, I just add them in commit N+1 and I'm done with
it. BFD.)

If you, or someone else, really want to invest time in the Autotools
stuff, I'll be happy to review patches and integrate them as needed.
I recognize that there are developers for whom this is important.
But I see no reason to invest more of my time in it.  I am trying to
avoid tails that wag the dog as much as possible.  :-)

Thanks,

Arnold