meo@stiatl.UUCP (Miles O'Neal) (03/01/89)
In article <8902282128.aa17018@SPARK.BRL.MIL> phil@BRL.MIL (Phil Dykstra) writes: >For those of you that still avoid Imakefiles, I point out that you >almost ALWAYS have to edit a Makefile to successfully install new >software, but almost NEVER have to edit Imakefiles. I beg to differ. A WELL-done Makefile needs little or no editing. The problem of course is that so few Makefiles that we see are well done. Almost none of the Imakefiles I have gotten from the net have been usable without editing at least 1 line, some have required several. Imake is not a panacea - you still have to think, design, and implement with knowledge & undersatanding of the issues to get Imakefiles to work as advertised. >Try it, you'll like it. I must admit, they generally take much LESS editing, on average... >- Phil -Miles gatech!stiatl!meo
jim@EXPO.LCS.MIT.EDU (Jim Fulton) (03/02/89)
> I beg to differ. A WELL-done Makefile needs little or no editing. Even a well done Makefile can't guess at what special options the compiler needs, what configuration options you've enabled, where the software should get installed, what special make directives or rules have to be inserted, what extra libraries need to be linked in, what special commands need to be run, etc. Trying to remember all of that junk is a waste of brain cells. If you have to edit an Imakefile you should report it to the author. > Imake is not a panacea - you still have to think, design, > and implement with knowledge & undersatanding of the issues to get > Imakefiles to work as advertised. I don't anybody ever claimed imake was perfect. Imakefiles are most easily written by finding one from a similar library or program and tweaking it. Makefiles are the assembler code of software management. Jim p.s. This might be a good time to mention that contributed software for R4 will *require* Imakefiles. p.p.s. People who are interested in imake should get a copy of the proceedings of the USENIX Software Management Workshop to be held in April. Assuming UPS Overnight got there in time, there should be a paper describing how and why the MIT releases of X use imake.