Re: A Closer Look at GNU AutoTools

[Shawn H Corey]

On Fri, 05 Sep 2014 00:36:11 +0200
Hartmut Holzgraefe <address@hidden> wrote:

> at least with autotools there are alternative documentation sources:
> 
> * the good old "Goats Book" which is also available online, and seems
>   to have received an update lately:
> 
>     https://www.sourceware.org/autobook/autobook/autobook_toc.html

From 5.1 User-Provided Input Files
<https://www.sourceware.org/autobook/autobook/autobook_24.html#SEC24>

## Makefile.am -- Process this file with automake to produce Makefile.in
bin_PROGRAMS = foonly
foonly_SOURCES = main.c foo.c foo.h nly.c scanner.l parser.y
foonly_LDADD = @LEXLIB@

Why isn't foonly_LDADD explained in the following text? (It took me
less than a minute to find that issue.)

> 
>   I still refer to my paper copy every once in a while, but by now
>   that one's so old that a lot of things need to be cross-checked
>   against current autotools documentation
> 
> * Autotools Mythbusters
> 
>   available as ebook and online
> 
>     https://www.flameeyes.eu/autotools-mythbuster/

ebook link not on page.

> 
> * "Autotools: A Practioner's Guide to GNU Autoconf, Automake, and
>   Libtool "
> 
>   available as paper and 'e' book, but no free edition here ...

Which means it does not exist.

> 
> While on the CMake front there's still essentially just "Mastering
> CMake" which is just more or less the CMake wiki documentation
> exported to paper ...

Making CMake look like a gimmick to sell books.

> 
> I've got to deal with both, for Unix-only projects I still prefer
> autotools over Cmake any time as the produced Makefiles are just
> way more powerful and the configuration option naming is more
> meaningful without the -D prefix and with the possibility to
> group them by topic where cmake and cmake-gui just provide an
> alphabetical list. But our flagship products need to be delivered
> for Windows, too, and maintaining two build systems in parallel
> didn't really make sense after all, so it's all cmake on that
> front now ...

What the frack is the -D option? Is it part of CMake or autoconf?

(See how easy it is to create nonsense.)


-- 
Don't stop where the ink does.
        Shawn