Re: master has switched from Automake to GNU Make

[Paul Eggert]

On 03/17/2017 01:21 PM, Kaushal Modi wrote:
> Also I use a wrapper script that does
>
> ./autogen.sh all
> ./configure ..
>
> And it worked just fine.
>
> Do I need the autogen + configure steps for each build?

Not usually, as the resulting Makefile attempts to deduce when it is 
out-of-date with respect to the inputs to 'autoconf', and it re-runs the 
equivalent of ./autogen.sh and ./configure when necessary.

That being said, the self-update procedure works only for "minor" 
changes to the build procedure - which is understandable, as updates 
cannot possibly work in general due to the procedure's 
self-referentiality. So when we make "major" changes one sometimes needs 
to start over from scratch, as in your wrapper script. (Unfortunately, 
the only definition of "major" is, "you need to start over from scratch".)