wanting to list make's deprecated/obsolete/discouraged features

[Robert P. J. Day]

  i'm putting together a short tutorial on gnu make for some clients
of mine, and i want to create a short list of make features that,
unless they have good reason, they should *avoid* using.

  not suggesting such features have *no* value, just want to have a
concise list of things that users should steer clear of, even though
they're in the current make manual but, even there, they're listed as
discouraged or only for backward compatibility, etc.

  off the top of my head, i'd start with:

  * don't use "FORCE" prerequisites, use .PHONY
  * avoid .RECIPEPREFIX, you have no need to not use tabs
  * avoid .SILENT, use "@"
  * you probably don't need double-colon rules unless you *really*
    know what you're doing
  * sinclude is really just another name for "-include",
  * avoid .IGNORE, it's there for historical compatibility
  * don't use .DEFAULT_GOAL, just put the default goal at the top
  * unless you're really good, you probably don't need VPATH/vpath

that sort of thing. not saying none of this stuff has value, but if
people are just starting out, i want to strip down the basics of make
to what matters and not clutter it with obsolete or discouraged
features, or features they probably don't need until they get more
advanced.

  thoughts?

rday

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Robert P. J. Day                                 Ottawa, Ontario, CANADA
                        http://crashcourse.ca

Twitter:                                       http://twitter.com/rpjday
LinkedIn:                               http://ca.linkedin.com/in/rpjday
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