[lug] OT: Makefile oddity

Michael J. Hammel mjhammel at graphics-muse.org
Fri Apr 19 12:41:10 MDT 2002


Thus spoke Tom Tromey
> Let me throw in a good word for autoconf here.  Autoconf isn't as hard
> to learn as you've all heard.  The `autoscan' tool can help a lot.
> There is a lot of documentation on Autoconf available on the web,
> including a few tutorials, the reference manual, and of course the
> autobook.

I don't really think learning autoconf is difficult, but if you've got
Makefile experience, it's probably a bit easier to learn Imake syntax than
learning autoconf syntax.  That's not a reflection on the complexities of
autoconf, but more a reflection on the similarities between make and imake.

Autoconf is actually a nice environment.  Unfortunately I haven't had the
time to learn enough of it to manage very large projects and, at least
currently, imake works well for the environments I'm in.  In other words,
imake wasn't gotten in my way enough to make me want to find an
alternative.  But I'll eventually get into autoconf.  It does have some
nice aspects regarding portability and ease of configuration.

-- 
Michael J. Hammel                               The Graphics Muse 
mjhammel at graphics-muse.org                      http://www.graphics-muse.com
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