Re: Octave-Forge: requirement for a maintainer Makefile for release

[Oliver Heimlich]

On 13.11.2016 23:34, Carnë Draug wrote:
> On 13 November 2016 at 21:36, Philip Nienhuis <address@hidden> wrote:
>> Not that I am opposed to a makefile with a dist (+ html) target; it'll help
>> to run autoconf/bootstrap etc (I remember to have forgotten that myself
>> before uploading a package) and -most of all- automates a lot of work.
>>
> 
> Good.  Let's wait a few more days to see if anyone opposes.
> 
> Carnë
> 

“Any sufficiently advanced Makefile is indistinguishable from magic.”

I have never written Makefiles before creating an Octave package.  It is
one of many things which I have learned from developing in the Octave
ecosystem.  I can clearly remember the time before that, when Makefiles
have been something that I tried to evade because of their syntax and
how they work, which I didn't understand at that time.

Looking back, Makefiles are a very simple tool. But you have to practice
a little bit before they lose scariness. :-)

So, if Makefiles become a requirement, please make sure that we offer as
much support as possible to new developers, such that this is not seen
as a burden.

* List a Makefile template in the wiki or at
  http://octave.sourceforge.net/developers.html
* Offer help to adopt the Makefile to someone's project
  via maintainers mailing list.

Oliver