On Mon, Jan 25, 2021 at 12:26 PM Nick Bowler <nbowler@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > On 2021-01-25, Zack Weinberg <zackw@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > I'm not at all familiar with Automake's internals, but the reason I > > suggested taking advantage of GNU make extensions was the potential > > for _complexity_ reduction of the generated Makefile, not performance. > > For instance, this generated rule from one of my other projects [...] > > To be honest if Automake-generated Makefile.in files only worked > for users with, say, sufficiently modern versions of GNU Make, I'm > not sure there would be any point in using Automake. > I'm not sure I see your point Nick. Why use Automake? Because I'd much rather write (and maintain) two lines of automake code than even a single page of GNU make code. It sounds like you're a GNU make expert (in fact, I know you are ;) ). That's great, but we should not assume everyone wants to be a GNU make expert. Automake syntax is almost trivial to learn and use and it generates a significant amount of detailed make code that I don't want to have to memorize how to do every time I create a new makefile. John
