Cleanup of makefiles 'n stuff

[Paul Smith]

Hi all.

Going through the content of GNU make sources recently it occurs to me
we have a LOT of ways to build GNU make.  Maybe at one time or another
all these different ways were necessary but I wonder if they still are.
Can't we reduce them somewhat?

For ways to build GNU make we have:

     1. Standard configure/Makefile.am
     2. build.sh
     3. Makefile.DOS
     4. NMakefile
     5. SMakefile
     6. build_w32.bat
     7. Makefile.ami
     8. makefile.vms
     9. makefile.com
    10. dosbuild.bat
    11. make_msvc_net2001.vcproj

I understand that for many of these we may need them: ways to build VMS
vs. Amiga vs. DOS may not be portable.

But do we really need both dosbuild.bat AND build_w32.bat?  Do we really
need NMakefile AND SMakefile AND Makefile.DOS?  The contents of these
files don't seem so different to me that they couldn't be consolidated,
perhaps with some command-line overrides or similar.  Or, maybe some of
them are just not needed; do we really have to be able to build with
nmake and smake?

Looking at it another way, for the non-configure-based systems isn't a
batch file enough, just to get GNU make built the first time, then you
can use GNU make itself to build afterwards?

Just wondering if we can't do a bit of cleanup here...

-- 
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 Paul D. Smith <address@hidden>          Find some GNU make tips at:
 http://www.gnu.org                      http://make.mad-scientist.net
 "Please remain calm...I may be mad, but I am a professional." --Mad Scientist