Re: Emacs in CVS as today does not build - emacs depends on *.elc, which cannot be built without emacs

["Stefan Monnier" <monnier+gnu/emacs@rum.cs.yale.edu>]

> Most, if not all, of those projects I have retrieved from CVS I have
> been able to use the "./configure; make; make install" incantation, so -
> recognizing that Emacs is a large and complex program with different
> needs to most other programs - I would still like to know what the
> reason for this is.

It can be done, but Emacs' Makefile has not been worked on sufficiently
to allow it to both work and be fast: checking whether bootstrap
is needed or not can be costly if you want to do it right (it's OK,
tho, since we can just be conservative as we do now) but more importantly
the best way to bootstrap is not always the same and since bootstrapping
can take a while...
The procedure has already been streamlined a little, but it still needs
more work.  The reason why it hasn't been done earlier is that .elc
files used to be stored in CVS (and in RCS before that) making bootstrapping
mostly unnecessary.  And also because once you've bootstrapped you almost
don't need to bootstrap ever again: I've had to bootstrap maybe 3 times
last year: not much incentive to improve it.

What I'm wondering is: when you tried to build Emacs, it should
have told you "use make bootstrap" or something like that.
Did it ?  Or did you simply not pay attention ?


	Stefan