🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Mar17.004430.16266@uunet.uu.net>, ziegast@godzilla.UU.NET (Eric W. Ziegast) writes:

> After fumbling with installing several GNU packages last weekend, I
> asked myself repeatedly, why doesn't GNU use something similar to
> Imakefiles and xmkmf?  Call them Gmakefiles and gmkmf.  In order to
> take some of the guesswork out for programmers, have them follow a
> set standard (like POSIX with GNU extensions) and make a
> compatability library for each system architecture so that they
> don't have to tweak anything to get their program to run across
> different platforms.

I agree wholeheartedly.  While GNU software is much easier to install
than a lot of other software out there, after about the hundredth time
you edit a Makefile to set 'man1dir' (or 'mandir', or...) to
'$(prefix)/man/man1l' (or whatever), the excitement wears off.  X
software which is properly written and which has a properly written
Imakefile is almost painless to compile and install; and writing
Imakefiles is much much easier than writing Makefiles.  So why not
distribute imake with a set of templates that are designed for using
it to compile GNU software and with a program 'gmkmf' which runs imake
using those templates?  That way, I could configure my system's
directory structure and so forth once and for all, and would be done
with it.

Heck, I'd even be willing to spend the time myself writing the
templates and Imakefiles for the existing GNU software if I knew that
they would actually be distributed.  But I suppose that the FSF is
basically settled on configure by now...

david carlton
carlton@husc.harvard.edu

       ..  I'm IMAGINING a sensuous GIRAFFE, CAVORTING in the BACK
       ROOM of a KOSHER DELI --