Should user be root to compile?

In docs/htmldocs/compiling.html, the example for building the
binaries shows the current user as "root".  I inferred from this that 
one should be the root user when building Samba.  Since then, I have 
been told that there is no need to build as root.  Could this section 
some text explaining whether compiling as root is:

-not required but recommended
-allowed but discouraged
-optional (neither recommended nor discouraged)