() Mark Heily <mark@xxxxxxxxx> () Mon, 25 Jun 2007 23:06:49 -0400 My intention is to save typing for power users and make it easier for novice users to build programs from source. This effectively hides the Autoconf/Automake mechanism unless someone wants to pass specific options to the configure script. Any thoughts? probably this is not a good idea; power users will not consider having to type "./configure" such a burden and may very well have other (highly personalized) methods to save typing. moreover, configuration is a good place for power users to feel (and be) powerful, since many options can be tweaked. to ease things for a novice, the best thing is to educate rather than obfuscate, so that their period of noviceness is shortened rather than prolonged. typically, i have seen a friendly blurb in README that includes the ./configure command (a "quick start" mini-script) followed by instructions on how to dig deeper into the configuration. when i was a novice, it took but two or three packages to internalize the concept that configuration is a necessary part of building. of course, back then, a configure run of a big package (like emacs) could take half an hour so that's plenty of time to peruse the rest of the README -- perhaps time is something novices of today cannot afford. [insert curmudgeon ramblings here.] i stand by my previous point, however; whatever the metric used for cost, the old saw is still applicable: "you think education is expensive? try ignorance." thi _______________________________________________ Autoconf mailing list Autoconf@xxxxxxx http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/autoconf
