Re: [Asymptote-developers] autotool files

[Gregg R. <de...@mo...>]

On 8/20/07, Peter Ansell <pan...@ya...> wrote:
> At least in the way that boehm-gc is configured this seems to be a step in the wrong direction. Why is AC_CHECK_HEADER not good enough? You may have some interesting ideas, but moving away from a clean
....
"clean" v. "not so nice"?  De gustibus non disputandem.  All autotools
stuff looks ugly to me.

The only reason for the code I wrote is to check the version.  Can't
do that with headers, and the reason for checking the version is
because the Asymptote currently insists on its preferred version of
the GC.  The code checking for C++ support, it turns out, is no longer
necessary.

The right thing to do is probably to put the code into an AC_ feature
check and add it to http://autoconf-archive.cryp.to/.  Then it
collapses to a single feature test, probably one line in configure.ac.

Since GC is optional, --with-FOO is necessary.

My own preference is that while the documentation of a pkg like
Asymptote may explain the pros/cons of a particular configuration, and
may even *strongly recommend* a recent version, in the end it's the
user's call, and the user is free to say "none of your business".   So
my feeling is Asymptote should just use whatever I have installed.  On
the other hand, I also think it's a Good Thing to help the user
understand the implications of particular configurations, so I think
checking the version of the GC - which the user may not be capable of,
think of a user on a multi-user system - and emitting an FYI message
is appropriate.  I meant to add a check on the version number, and
emit a message like "Your version is outdated; an upgrade to the
latest version is highly recommended.  See the INSTALL file for
details".  Something like that, anyway, brief and to the point.  I
meant to, but forgot. ;)

The other reason for the code is to get rid of the stuff that builds the GC.

-gregg