RE: [Plplot-devel] Re: [Plplot-cvs] CVS update notice (plplot/bindings/tcl)

[Geoffrey F. <fu...@ga...>]

Alan W. Irwin writes:
 > The files in the commit message below depend on pltclgen, plapi.tpl, and
 > tclcmd.tpl and are easily generated by
 > 
 > perl pltclgen
 > 
 > In the interest of keeping our cvs free of files which are generated from
 > other files I would like to remove these from cvs.
 > 
 > Please let me know if there are any good reasons to keep these files under
 > cvs control.

Maurice will probably be the only one besides me who will remember
that the use of a perl-based pltclgen was the source of the
overwhelming majority of plplot build problems trouble reports, for a
number of years.  People would fetch the snapshots, try to build,
wouldn'thave perl on their system, configure would work but the build
would fail, and they'd send trouble reports in like the Great Flood.

When I got so tired I could stand it no longer, I just added the files
to the repo so that would-be users wouldn't be triped up over such a
small thing.

That was before we had binary releases.  I dunno, maybe it would be
okay to go back to the "no generated files in the repo" posture now,
figuring that anyone skipping the .rpms and just checking out the
source directly, can handle a build.  But note that some users took
particular exception to the fact that they had to have perl installed
in order to build the Tcl binding :-).

Checking the files in was the act that stemmed the tide.  If you want
to unplug the dike, its on you.  :-).

-- 
Geoffrey Furnish         fu...@ga...