Re: [RFC PATCH] Makefile: Turn off the configure target by default

From: Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason <avarab@gmail.com>
Date: Oct 11, 2010, 07:59 UTC
Message-ID: <AANLkTikGSj-x4hk7NFysWETuR80=REZ81Qy8Zu3Pks-L@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <36e21bdafd75e95f1e13437f81067c71c7390408.1286783121.git.git@drmicha.warpmail.net>

On Mon, Oct 11, 2010 at 07:47, Michael J Gruber <git@drmicha.warpmail.net> wrote:

(CC-ing Jakub Narebski, who maintains configure.ac)

I don't like it. For one this would break build scripts that use `make configure && ./configure && ...`. It's also annoying to have to set some variable to *really* invoke a target that I just indicated I *really* wanted by invoking it in the first place.

Perhaps a @echo from the configure script itself indicating that it's complimentary would be better.

> For most software packages, untar-autoconf/make configure-configure-make
> is the preferred way to build the package; not so for Git. But the
> presence of the make target makes people believe so.

Unlike in most packages autoconf is strictly complimentary for Git, but it usually gives you much better results. Instead of the Makefile guessing based on `uname -s` we actually check for features and set the config.mak.autogen variables accordingly.

So it's less likely to break on odd systems, and given that (as you point out) mostly everyone has autoconf already recommending it as the default would make more sense than the other way around.

>    On an annecdotical note: When I decided to switch to a dvcs, I failed building
>    Git (with configure) and tried out hg instead. Imagine!

What sort of failure? Has it been fixed since then?