[bug #58243] confusing configure instruction: DO NOT manually edit the relevant files

[Boud Roukema]

URL:
  <https://savannah.nongnu.org/bugs/?58243>

                 Summary: confusing configure instruction: DO NOT manually
edit the relevant files
                 Project: Reproducible paper template
            Submitted by: boud
            Submitted on: Sat 25 Apr 2020 09:05:00 PM UTC
                Category: None
                Severity: 3 - Normal
              Item Group: Output not reasonable
                  Status: None
                 Privacy: Public
             Assigned to: None
             Open/Closed: Open
         Discussion Lock: Any

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Details:

This is a usability bug.

After successfully running ./project configure, I see


To change the configuration later, please re-run './project configure', DO
NOT manually edit the relevant files.


This makes the user wonder _where_ s/he should modify configuration
parameters, 
if s/he is asked _not_ to modify any files that are "relevant"! Literally,
s/he
is apparently requested to only edit _irrelevant_ files. Which defeats the
point: if the
files are irrelevant, then there's no point editing them.

Clearly, _reproduce/software/config/TARGETS.conf_ *should* be modified if the
user
wishes to add a new top-level target which is one of the packages that is
already
set up in the system.

This also seems to discourage the addition of packages that are not yet set
up
in terms of:

reproduce/software/config/checksums.conf
reproduce/software/config/versions.conf
reproduce/software/make/high-level.mk


A wording improvement is needed here. Since I'm still getting the hang of the
whole system, I'm not quite sure what is intended here.





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