[Java-gnome-developer] Re: java autoconf macros

[Mark H. <mh...@ca...>]

On Mon, Dec 15, 2003 at 05:00:57PM -0500, Thomas Fitzsimmons wrote:
> First question: as stated in the README, the CVS checkout does look
> really weird.  But the README doesn't give justification for the
> weirdness!  It looks like the .in.in files are an attempt to reuse bits
> of configury that are common to the various subpackages. 
The gnome bindings release want us to make separate tarballs for each
module, the main reason being because they think it will look good on
the website to list which modules each binding supports. That's why I
had to split everything. This means having separate Makefiles and
configure scripts for each module. Much of the configure scripts and
Makefile is shared between the components, so I created the in.in files
so these shared parts can be kept in common/ files and the job of
updating them should be easier (only have to update one file). 

> Another question: why not use automake?  For gcj support, automake makes
> things much easier.  And the install problems that Mark was seeing will
> likely just disappear.
As you've probably guessed, I am no build system expert. In fact, this
is one of the most complicated changes I've made to a build system so
far. Java-Gnome previously used Makefile.in's, so I just continued along
that line. I will look into automake though. 

> Anyway, I think a lot of configury changes are needed to cleanly support
> gcj-only builds, and it's probably not a priority right now, with the
> gnome-bindings deadline approaching.  Configury changes can be made
> without affecting binary or source compatibility. :)
Good point. I think making everyone build the gcj builds will make them
more likely to try them out too, which has got to be a good thing. 

> I hope these suggestions help,
Yes, thanks a lot for your time.

-- 
  .''`. Mark Howard
 : :' :
 `. `'  http://www.tildemh.com 
   `-   mh...@de... | mh...@ti... | mh...@ca...