Re: [Groff] additions to autoconf files

[Ralph Corderoy]

Hi Bernd,

> > The current policy is to add a test only if there is a failure on a
> > particular system.  Today, there are many standards like POSIX which
> > define a lot of header files, and most operating systems follow it.
> > Older platforms are dying so I really don't see a reason to blow up
> > the configure script with those tests.
> 
> That is not a policy, but trial and error, and error, and error,...

History shows that it isn't though.  It's a policy of only fixing
problems that exist.  Any errors that do crop up are considered, tested
for, and worked around.  Who has complained that groff-getopt.h was
missing?  Or that they had X11 but not X11/Xaw/Dialog.h?

> Why no doing it right in the first place?  autoconf just
> defines/undefines some varibles/macros.  This does not hurt.

There's no point in it doing the test unless something takes note of the
result.  And what is the code to do if some of those header files are
missing?  That's the effort you're not taking into account as far as the
header files are concerned.

Cheers,


Ralph.