Re: Chicken/egg problem building from a 'git clone'

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Feb 6, 2009, 10:28 UTC
Message-ID: <7vd4dv7tb3.fsf@gitster.siamese.dyndns.org>
In-Reply-To: <buoab8z52te.fsf@dhlpc061.dev.necel.com>

Miles Bader <miles@gnu.org> writes:

Show 6 quoted lines

> Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> writes:
>>
>> Please do not encourge use of configure/autoconf *in this project*.
>
> Er ... I was not doing so.  I was saying that if one is going to use
> autoconf with git, one should use a non-ancient version.

That is nice but the statement is only half-truth, and should be followed by ", but why bother? You do not even need to use configure to build git, and insn is all here...".

Omitting that latter half and instead having him spend time to update autoconf, which is not even needed, sounds like strongly encouraging its use to me.

> I don't think merely discussing autoconf+git without pejorative asides
> is "encouraging use".

"You should use recent enough autoconf *if* you want to use configure, but why bother? You do not even need to use configure to build git, and here is how..." does not say anything pejorative about autoconf, either, and it is certainly not encouraging its use.

On the other hand, omitting "but why bother?" part is, and the reason is not because it does not badmouth autoconf, but because use of autoconf is non-essential in this project.