Re: ideas for speeding up compile mode

[Ralf Wildenhues]

Hi Bob, Scott,

* Bob Friesenhahn wrote on Tue, May 17, 2005 at 11:08:52PM CEST:
> On Mon, 16 May 2005, Scott Kruger wrote:
> >
> >As someone who is just getting started in the whole GNU autotools world,
> >I think "keeping libtool outside of automake" is one of the things that
> >make it difficult to learn GNU autotools.

This fact will not change with my proposal.  To be precise: I don't
believe it will become easier to learn GNU autotools after this change,
but I have the hope that is also won't become a lot harder either.

> Besides the fact that not all libtooled projects choose to use 
> automake,

Sure.  I addressed that point.

> keeping the libtool component outside of automake ensures 
> that automake can continue to make releases on a timely schedule.

My idea is the following:  By default, things will remain the way they
are now.  `libtool --mode=compile' is not going away at all.  However,
if you deem your project ready or worthy, and you have recent enough
Automake plus Libtool, you may enable a certain Automake option _and_ a
certain Libtool option (AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE([...]) resp LT_INIT([...])) to
allow for fast compile mode.

I believe that I can get this to work so that, if you *don't* use these
options, no further version dependency (from what we have now) will ensue.

I fail to see where we increase the version interdependencies for the
default mode.  OTOH, I very much think that this is _the right way_ from
a technical standpoint:  `libtool --mode=compile' spends the most time
in quoting its input suitable for output, and finding where in its input
is what to be found.  Both of these jobs are _not necessary_ when done
from within the Makefile, because
a) we have the command line split up neatly
b) we have everything quoted suitably

It'd be nice to know whether the Automake people would be willing to
take a look at this route at all.

Regards,
Ralf