automake vs. GNU make [LWN.net]

automake vs. GNU make

Posted Feb 7, 2008 23:25 UTC (Thu) by aleXXX (subscriber, #2742)
In reply to: automake vs. GNU make by vmole
Parent article: LCA: Disintermediating distributions

> [libtool is] apparently as hard to get right as using the actual OS
> tools would be, which would at least be debuggable by normal human
> beings.

"at least be debuggable" - very well put, I completely agree.
Why does automake actually need libtool at all ? I mean it generates the 
makefile code, it could as well just generate the code for calling the 
actual OS tools directly in the makefiles. This would remove this one 
layer of indirection.

Alex

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automake vs. GNU make

Posted Feb 8, 2008 0:44 UTC (Fri) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

automake can't generate the commands libtool executes because automake 
runs on the distributor's machine, not the builder's, and doesn't have a 
clue what sort of system the build will take place on.

automake vs. GNU make

Posted Feb 8, 2008 7:20 UTC (Fri) by aleXXX (subscriber, #2742) [Link]

Ah, yes, indeed.
(I didn't work with autotools in the last years).

Then, couldn't the configure script handle that ? It runs on the build 
machine.

Alex

automake vs. GNU make

Posted Feb 8, 2008 21:28 UTC (Fri) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

Yes, it could: but in libtool 1.5 it doesn't :(

I never said libtool didn't suck. It's just better than anything else 
around right now for the job it does, and it has a *lot* of hard-won 
knowledge of shared library wierdness on manifold systems encoded into it 
(as autoconf does of other cross-system variation).