[Freeciv-Dev] Re: configure fixlet

["Per I. Mathisen" <Per.Inge.Mathisen@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, Dec 19, 2001 at 07:03:41PM +0100, Per I. Mathisen wrote:
> > This changes some warnings in configure that I find annoying. Configure
> > warnings show up when you do a simple grep for specific messages, or come
> > out of order when you use more, for example. That readline cannot be
> > installed isn't a big deal, so it does not need any warnings.
> >
> > Genereally I think warnings should not be used.

On Sat, 22 Dec 2001, Reinier Post wrote:
> I disagree.  If I wanted readline and it doesn't work, I want to be told.

If you wanted readline badly, you'd add --enable-readline, and configure
would stop with an error when it didn't find it. Actually, this should be
standard policy for all options (if --enable/--use is given, throw error
if not found, don't ignore).

Now what if you want readline, but believe it to work ok, so you don't add
it as an option? So - unless you actually do "./configure > /dev/null",
you are just as likely to miss it as an ordinary AC_MSG_NOTICE. For
ordinary users it might be an idea (used in some projects) to list at the
very end which major features were found (eg readline, sound systems,
client types, etc), as most users won't be reading the extremely verbose
configure output line by line and might first be surprised by the result
after the point of "make install".

BTW, ./configure is more than due for a full overhaul. It needs to be
ported to the new generation autoconf (2.5x) and some of the m4 macros are
in need of updating. Any takers? I started doing this, but couldn't figure
out those nasty FC_ X11/Xaw macros in acinclude.m4 ...

Yours,
Per

"Economics is extremely useful as a form of employment for economists."
 -- John Kenneth Galbraith