On 10/27/99 4:38 PM Simon McClenahan ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
>> > Have you considered using GNU's autoconf to provide a configuration and
>> > Makefile generator with the Analog distribution?
>>
>> Yes, but I don't really see the point. It would really only be used on
>> Unix, and it compiles out-of-the-box on Unix anyway. There is almost no
>> platform-specific code at least among Unix versions (and very little at
>> all).
>
>"Almost no" and "very little" platform-specific code are the gotchas that
>can be avoided. And using a Configure script does more than create
>Makefile rules for building the software, it also handles the installation
>issues (and the distribution issues), which is what the originator of this
>thread was assuming that everything would be installed in a default
>configuration, "out-of-the-box". I'm not familiar with autoconf's non-UNIX
>configuration abilities, but I think they do exist. I'm all for brain-dead
>configuration, build and install scripts, as long as they are flexible,
>like GNU's autoconf.
>
>When I built Analog 3.2x, 3.31, 3.32 and 3.90b1 I had to manually make
>changes to the Makefile and HTML forms interface (and probably others),
>all of them similar for each version, but not quite. I also installed them
>with different default analog.cfg files for development and production
>environments. To help ease these modifications and my flawed memory, I had
>to save diff outputs so I know what I will need to change when I want to
>install the next version.
There is very very little of that that would be improved with
./configure. The main thing it would fix is the small edits to the
Makefile for the Sun and a few other platforms. Other than that it is
going to help very little, make the download larger, make the compile
time longer, and add complexity.
configure is not going to magicaly get you a user interface to the
analog.cfg file without a huge amount of work on Stephens part, and even
then it would hardly be better than just editing a well commented
analog.cfg file. It can't help you with installing because there is no
installing, you just put Analog anywhere you want, which is totaly better
than having to run 'make install' as root and worry about where it is
going to get put and security issues.
There is nothing configure can do about people being confused by the
difference between file paths and URL paths, such as the IMAGEDIR
problem. Distribution is hardly an issue at all, and could be better
handled by some trival additions to the current Makefile.
The one issue that I count as most misleading, the conflict between when
to use analhead.h and when to use analog.cfg, which is directly related
to what started this thread, wouldn't be helped in any useful way by
configure. Stephen could change things to deal with that problem in
several ways, and one would assume he might do that if he was using
configure, but the same changes would be just as helpful without
configure.
If there is an underlying problem with Analog, it is that there are too
many configuration options, and too many completely different ways to use
the program. Interestingly that is exactly why Analog is such a popular
program, many people use it in many different ways. My experience is that
every user insists on configuring some option or another, but no two
users want to configure the same option.
The only complete solution would be a gigantic graphical user interface,
which would talk almost as long to write as Analog did in the first
place, and not be at all portable. The configuration tasks it ought to
perform are way beyond what configure can handle. Take a look at Analog
Helper on the Mac and tell me how you can handle any of that with
configure?
In the short run, I would vote for some reduction in the overlap between
analog.cfg and analhead.h even if that is just a change in emphisis to
favor one or the other in the documentation. Second would be a clear list
of the four or five settings almost everyone has to change that would
appear in the manual, and in comments in both analhead.h and analog.cfg.
Jason
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[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Dr. Seuss books . . . can be read and enjoyed on several levels. For
example, 'One Fish Two Fish, Red Fish Blue Fish' can be deconstructed
as a searing indictment of the narrow-minded binary counting system.
-- Peter van der Linden, Expert C Programming, Deep C Secrets
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