make bootstrap: need moral support. :-(

[Alan Mackenzie]

Hi, Emacs!

I've got CC Mode 5.31.3 ready for merging into the Emacs CVS.  First, I
should be testing it on an up to date Emacs 22.

So, I cvs updated my copy of CVS Emacs this morning.  I followed this
with a ./configure and a make bootstrap.  It failed in process.c with a
"dereferencing pointer to incomplete type" error, whatever that is.

I also cvs updated back on 28th November.  My make failed then too, and I
never got round to fixing it.

I originally cvs checkedout my CVS Emacs on 9th September last year.  It
built then, though not without effort.  So all my testing on CVS Emacs is
on the version from September last year.

I've got gcc 2.95.3 and make 3.79.1.  Surely they should build Emacs OK?
Surely?

Right now, I've got that "Oh my goodness, do I have to go through all
_this_ yet again?" feeling about this.  That I've got several hours or
even days of drudgery, just to get Emacs to build - That I'll track down
the first error, fix it (with perhaps some little tweak in my ./configure
options, or #undefining some option, or), then stumble across the next
glitsch, ....., and a week later, perhaps, I'll have an up to date
working CVS Emacs.

Surely, things shouldn't be like this.  Are things really like this, or
am I just being unlucky at the moment?  Do other people have this ghastly
experience too, or do most of you hit the <CR> on "make bootstrap" or the
like with the expectation that it's "probably going to build OK, no
sweat"?  Or do I need some magic parameters to my ./configure?

Would somebody cheer me up, please.

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Munich, Germany)