[H-GEN] GNU Autotools and project management

[Clinton Roy]

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David Findlay <david at davsoft.com.au> writes:

> Could anyone point me to a howto on open source project management using GNU 
> Autotools? 
No. Everything that I've ever looked at has been out of date,
misleading, too simple, or just plain wrong.

> I'd like my project to use the standard autogen.sh, and ./configure;
> make; make install system used by GNU stuff, but the Autotools
> manual is rather daunting. 
(autogen.sh isn't standard, but that's nit picking)

> All the examples are either to complex or too simple for my
> project. Is there any beginner's crash course in Autotools around? 
> Or would my time be better spent fully understanding the Autotools
> manual? Thanks,
Unfortunately, the manuals are the best place to start. The next place
I go to with a problem is the respective mail archive.

To get into specifics, the three main autotools (autoconf, automake,
libtool) are written and maintained by separate people, they just
barely work together. There are a lot of common problems that people
have that are not covered by the tools, and cause each project to
attack them in different ways. 

My biggest complaint is that the autotools don't increase portability,
they don't even really ease the job of writing portable code, they
just bring it to the fore a little.

On the plus side, there have been moves in recent times of the
automake and autoconf people actually working together a little
bit. 

</rant>.
-- 
Clinton Roy
Elvin Software Engineer - elvin.dstc.edu.au
Humbug Vice president   - www.humbug.org.au

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