Re: [improved] Fix building autoconf.1 [trivial]

[Paul Eggert]

Stepan Kasal <address@hidden> writes:

> Another comment: why are the *.x files listed in the dependences?  I think
> that it is enough that the .x suffix is in the pattern rule.  Thus I removed
> them.

That part makes sense to me, so I installed it.

However, I'm leery of the rest of the proposed patch, as it uses time
stamp files.  I've had trouble with time stamp files in the past.  If
we really need a time stamp file, it suggests that we're not using
"make" the way it was originally intended.

Is this problem important enough to fix?  If so, is there some way to
fix it that doesn't involve time stamp files?  The basic problem (it
seems to me) is the usual one where different submakes aren't
communicating their dependencies to one another correctly.

Can we address this instead by using a single big makefile rather than
two smaller makefiles?  E.g., suppose bin/Makefile.am also makes man
pages as a side effect.