Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Re: Online book for usability

[Andrew Suffield]

On Sun, Jun 27, 2004 at 09:18:04AM -0700, Tom Lord wrote:
>     > The set of files which are stored in the archive, and the set of
>     > files which are distributed in tarballs, are similar but
>     > distinct.
> 
>     > distclean and dist are here because *building a distribution tarball
>     > requires building some files to go in it*, not because there might be
>     > some unrelated files in the same tree. They're in the GNU conventions
>     > because GNU encourages this behaviour, especially for things like
>     > bison.

> Providing that list of files by some independent mechanism, such as
> inventory, makes it possible to use generic makefile recipes for those
> targets.   The makefile _dependencies_ of `dist' aren't generic, as
> you say, but the recipe can be.

Yeah, but you don't need inventory for that. Automake, for example,
does it already - the list of dependencies is all you need..

> I'm not sure why you think `inventory' isn't right for maintaining
> that explicit manifest, punning that manifest as the files arch would
> archive.   Sure, weirdness can occur if your store built-shipped on a
> branch into which people are making merges or are making commits that
> change their prereqs without updating them.   There's two reasonable
> solutions to that:  (1) don't keep those files on such branches (add them
> to release branches);  (2) keep them but learn to manage them
> carefully (ala GCC).   If you're shipping them, surely you want them
> archived somewhere....

I don't feel any particular need to archive them, any more than I do
the compiled object files - they're pseudo-deterministically
reproducable on demand. Doing so would only create extra work when
merging.

-- 
  .''`.  ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield
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