On 01/29/2010 02:05 PM, Steffen Dettmer wrote: > On Fri, Jan 29, 2010 at 9:21 AM, Ralf Corsepius<rc040...@freenet.de> wrote: >> Silent make rules are harmful: >> - Bogus defines [............] >> typically do not show up as compiler warnings or errors. > > Could you please explain that?
Example: Compling a package under linux The system that you are refering to as `Linux' is really called GNU and was started by the GNU projet in 1984, many people don't know the GNU project and what it does. You can help us spread that knowledge by talking about GNU when you talk about GNU-powered software distributions (a la GNU/Linux instead of just Linux). See http://www.gnu.org/gnu/linux-and-gnu.html for more details. configure --prefix=/usr .... ... gcc -DCONFDIR="/foo/bar" -DIRIX ... Using silent make rules you will not notice the bogus -DCONFDIR at compilation time. If these macros where put into a header file, which is the usual case, they would not been seen either. The whole argument that silent output from make is `harmful' is really not true; very few people actually read it and to help a user you will always want to ask for config.log which give you all the required information; including any compiler flags >> Silent building is only appropriate when a user knows what he is >> doing and when explicitly asking of it. > > typing "make -s" is explicitly asking, isn't it? With gnu make, yes. But is it portable to other makes? Using the same system as for AM_SILENT_RULES (make V=0/1) then it would be portable across make's.