RE: A Closer Look at GNU AutoTools

[John Calcote]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: address@hidden
> [mailto:address@hidden On Behalf Of
> Shawn H Corey
> Sent: Thursday, September 04, 2014 4:05 PM
> To: autoconf
> Subject: Re: A Closer Look at GNU AutoTools
> 
...
> That's because you have forgotten what's it like to be faced with
thousands
> of pages of technical manuals about something you know nothing about and
> all you want to do is a simple task.

If you're looking for a tutorial that walks you through the small set of
tasks that you personally need to perform, you're unlikely to find one
unless you write it. This is just common sense. While there are many
task-specific tutorials out there, the fact is, the Autotools are a general
set of build tools designed to handle a million permutations of build
requirements. The manuals are necessarily complete and generic.

> You mean those ASCII diagrams that should be inside <pre></pre> tags?
> And you don't think that's crappy?

Are they in some way unreadable? The point is to convey information. If they
accomplish that task, how could they be better? If the definition of crappy
is "they're not polished eye candy", well then I guess they're crappy, but
for my own uses they suffice.

That said, however, please feel free to submit updated versions of these
graphics that have a bit more polish to them. Please don't forget to submit
the necessary changes to the documentation build system to make these
graphics be properly incorporated into the document, and also don't forget
to ensure the final pictures (if generated from source) are in a format that
will be acceptable to the wide community of autotools users - probably at
least PNG, but don't take my word for it - survey the list and ensure the
chosen format is acceptable. See, it's not as easy as it looks - ASCII is
probably a reasonable compromise.

John