Re: [Libmesh-devel] Still Really Dislike Automake

[Paul T. B. <ptb...@gm...>]

This all got started while I was lecturing for my two undergrad classes, so
I'm going to piggy back on Roy's response to start and then reply to some
others since history was getting trimmed in some replies.

On Thu, Aug 30, 2018 at 12:28 PM Roy Stogner <roy...@ic...>
wrote:

>
> On Thu, 30 Aug 2018, Derek Gaston wrote:
>
> > After all of these years: I still dislike the Automake build system
> > in libMesh.
>
> So do I.
>

All build systems suck. As Ben pointed out, one advantage with autotools is
not having to build the build system. (CMake, SCons, etc.)


> > I still can't believe that we threw out a perfectly
> > decent build system and saddled ourselves with this thing.
>

Decent, but feature incomplete.


> > In hindsight: do you guys TRULY think it was worth it?
>
> For install/dist/distcheck targets, and out-of-source builds?  Yeah.
>

I'll add 'check' target as well, but emphatically yes on all counts.
Especially check, install, and out-of-source builds.


> > All I'm trying to do right now is add ONE damn header file - and I
> > can't seem to find the magic script / sauce to get everything
> > updated.  I ran include/rebuild_include_HEADERS.sh ... nope.  I ran
> > bootstrap... still nope.  Oh!  Now I remember... I need to run
> > include/libmesh/rebuild_makefile.sh... NOPE!
>

https://github.com/libMesh/libmesh/wiki/Adding-or-removing-source-files

Should we put one magic add_files.sh at the top level?
>
> But the two include shell scripts should have done it... that's always
> worked for me.  I guess I usually manually bootstrap afterwards too,
> but in my experience automake is smart enough to rerun itself if it
> sees Makefile.am newer than Makefile.in.
>

But I do agree this seems like a needless hassle to symlink the header
files. Were we just trying to preserve some transition between svn and git
or something? Why not just `git mv` the headers and get rid of the need for
symlinking. I'm sure I'm missing something, but I don't remember what it is.


> > Ok - 100% serious here.  If I redo the libMesh build system so that
> > it's autoconf and make based again - would you guys consider
> > switching to it?
>
> Consider?  Yes.  Anticipate agreeing to with such a high probability
> that the work would be worth your time?  No.
>

Pretty much this.  I don't think it's worth the time because none of the
features we have with automake I'm willing to give up.


> Except... if you're going full Focus on creating a new build system,
> presumably you'd want to put it in MOOSE too...
>
> And I'd really love to be able to do out-of-source builds in MOOSE
> too.  If "autoderek" handled that (plus "make install"; I don't care
> as much about dist/distcheck)


I disagree, I think dist and distcheck are important. Also `make check`.


> it would be totally worth the switch
> from my point of view.  You'd still have to convince others though.
>
> (It's not really graft if I let my decisions get swayed for code
> rather than money, right? ...)
> ---
>
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