Re: [CRAZY PROPOSAL] Automake should support only GNU make

[Ralf Wildenhues]

* Guido Draheim wrote on Thu, Jan 13, 2011 at 08:55:20PM CET:
> By the way, I would find it more interesting to see some
> automake-replacement that allows GNU-make extensions and
> compiles them down to standard make as far as possible...

Generally, I wouldn't, as I don't like the idea of reimplementing GNU
make inside Automake.  A couple of ideas might be worth stealing though.

> On the other hand some automake-restrictions are really not needed
> anymore. (variables with "." and "/" would be nice - along with
> http://www.gnu.org/software/automake/manual/make/Computed-Names.html
> it would easily allow a scheme to define generated compile-flags).

Well, with a bit of luck, recursive variable expansion will be part of
the next Posix standard.  Unfortunately, there are limitations in
existing make implementations that affect your (good) ideas, and also I
don't think / is portable in variable names.  See here for more info:
<http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.sysutils.automake.general/12361>

(Reminds me of which, I still need to do some portability testing for
that ...)

Cheers,
Ralf