Re: [Automake-ng] [PATCH] [ng] maint: rename automake -> automake-ng, aclocal -> aclocal-ng

[Stefano Lattarini]

On 04/15/2012 01:52 AM, Stefano Lattarini wrote:
> On 04/14/2012 08:35 PM, Jim Meyering wrote:
>> Stefano Lattarini wrote:
>>> With the aim of avoiding confusion between Automake and Automake-NG as
>>> much as possible, we rename the 'automake' and 'aclocal' scripts in the
>>> 'ng/master' branch to 'automake-ng' and 'aclocal-ng' respectively, and
>>> adjust the testsuite and the automatic remake rules accordingly.

>> Hi Stefano,
>>
>> Won't this cause trouble for those who want to use the new tools?
>> Either they will have to rename the tools to remove the -ng suffix
>> or somehow update all scripts that invoke "automake" and "aclocal"
>> to use the new names.
>>
> In tho longish term, I want to add a new option 'ng' recognized only by
> Automake-NG, and then patch autoreconf to invoke 'aclocal-ng' and
> 'automake-ng' when it sees this 'ng' option in the AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE
> call (patch for the first step coming up soonish, likely tomorrow).
> Do you think this would be an acceptable route?
>
But now that I've tried to do so, I see that this change to autoreconf
would be quite biggish and cumbersome (albeit not difficult), and would
add yet more code for a little gain.  So I'd now prefer a middle-ground
solution: we go ahead with the renaming, but also install an 'automake'
and an 'aclocal' symlink by default, and add a configure option that
will allow the installer to prevent the creation of such symlinks.

Does this sounds better?  If yes, I'll post a new patch series implementing
this idea (a first patch to do the renaming, a second one to install the
symlinks, a third introducing the new 'ng' option).

>> Hi Stefano,
>>
>> Won't this cause trouble for those who want to use the new tools?
>>
>> I would prefer to leave the names unchanged.
>>
>> For the record, I tried automake/aclocal built from the ng branch in
>> cppi today.  Here is the very first change that was required in order
>> to make it so ./bootstrap no longer failed:
>>
>> [I would have much preferred to see that automake-ng uses a much larger
>>  version number.  With the obligatory decrease to 0.5, I am forced to
>>  let all older versions of automake pass these prereq tests.  ]
>>
> Some people are quite jumpy at the idea that we might try to force
> Automake-NG on them through either a confusion of names or a dirty
> trick with version numbers:
> 
>   <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/automake-ng/2012-02/msg00024.html>
> 
> So I'd rather be dumb and safe in this area.
> 

Thanks,
  Stefano