Re: [PATCH] Makefile: Add help target

From: Sverre Rabbelier <srabbelier@gmail.com>
Date: Sep 28, 2010, 11:37 UTC
Message-ID: <AANLkTi=beUW5j4WSGOB__LNP7o60Wep_Y9n4YXOZUMtU@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <7v39suurpw.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org>

Heya,

On Tue, Sep 28, 2010 at 11:45, Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote:

> I do not look forward to having to maintain a large number of lines that
> are doomed to go stale

How often have we changed makefile targets recently? The most recent one that I can find is Jakub adding "install-gitweb" in 152d94348f, which was back in May 1st. The next one before that is the addition of 'gitweb' in 62331ef1637f which was back in January 30th. Besides, 'make help' doesn't have to contain _all_ Makefile targets, just the important ones that a user is most likely to need. Similar to 'git help' itself.

> and every time we need to touch we need to deal
> with a lot of noise "@echo '"?

I don't understand what is particularly bothersome about the leading "@echo" lines. Adding or removing a target is still very easy even with the leading @echo's, the only thing that would be a PITA is reflowing paragraphs, currently, there _are_ no paragraphs, everything fits on one line.

> It might be a bit less distasteful if it were plain text additions at the
> end of INSTALL file, though.

That does not help me nearly as much when I want to know how a makefile target is called. Am I wrong in asserting that having a "make help" target is an accepted "good practice" in the unix world?

-- 
Cheers,

Sverre Rabbelier