Re: non recursive makefiles

[MJ Ray]

Nicola Pero <nicola@brainstorm.co.uk> wrote:
> Thanks, MJ Ray -- your comments make a good point -- the main problem is
> that 'make' does not provide you with a full-fledged programming language.

Recursion or not doesn't change that either way.  If you have a specific
point about a frequently-necessary feature that requires recursion,
please restate it.

> It's extremely limited and we're already pushing it over the edge.  The
> first obvious objection is that if you remove recursive invocations and
> just include everything in the top-level GNUmakefile, then everything
> defined in any GNUmakefile included by the top-level execution would be in
> the same namespace.

Yes, the subprojects that you use in one project have to be compatible,
but that's already true. Recursion doesn't change that fundamentally
either.  A higher-level makefile can easily pollute the environment
variables in a way that breaks lower levels, can't it? Not isolation
at all. Assuming isolation seems dangerous to me.

Recursion does allow "dirty" makefile practices to continue longer. Maybe
sometimes recursion would be necessary, but I don't see why it seems to
be the default for so many GNUstep packages. Is it just lack of time to
hack an elegant solution, which is what your message suggests?

The recursion in the current gnustep-make are part of the hindrance,
but there's a lot more undocumented hacks and magics in there, which is
probably the biggest reason it doesn't get all the love it could.