Re: Autotools build system

(after sitting in my drafts folder for too long)

On Sunday 21 June 2009, David Fang wrote:
> -dev is typically a build-only dependency not needed at run
> time for any packages, only needed temporarily when compiling
> a package, so it wouldn't be installed unless you explicitly
> asked for it.


I know that ...

I consider in to be very important to control the dependencies 
of gnucap (or any program).  Specifically, the only absolute 
dependency that can be tolerated for the core is a standards-
compliant C++ compiler with a standard library.  Even that is 
asking too much.  Every compiler has bugs and holes in its  
implementation.  So, the expectation now is the subset of the 
standard that common compilers support.

Any other goodies are fine if they are not required.  If 
something else makes your job easier, go ahead and use it, but 
don't require everyone else to use it. There must be a work-
around.

I consider any deviation from this policy to be a bug.  Whether 
it is a release-critical bug is a matter of judgement, but it is 
a bug.

Plugins can have more dependencies, since they are optional.

For the build system, GNU has a document specifying a set of 
programs that can be used in the build process.  Ironically, it 
seems to be designed around autotools, but autotools itself does 
not comply with the policy.