From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: "Eric S. Raymond" Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Witness computation - minor breakage in the build system Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2014 00:08:59 -0500 Organization: Eric Conspiracy Secret Labs Message-ID: <20140112050859.GA1742@thyrsus.com> References: <20140112043735.C0A2E380523@snark.thyrsus.com> <52D21EFA.1010905@cs.ucla.edu> Reply-To: esr@thyrsus.com NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1389503345 6056 80.91.229.3 (12 Jan 2014 05:09:05 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2014 05:09:05 +0000 (UTC) Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Paul Eggert Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sun Jan 12 06:09:12 2014 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1W2DIN-0001PS-LV for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sun, 12 Jan 2014 06:09:11 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:36464 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1W2DIN-00062v-5Y for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sun, 12 Jan 2014 00:09:11 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:47415) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1W2DIG-00062m-Hz for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 12 Jan 2014 00:09:08 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1W2DIC-0006e5-Hn for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 12 Jan 2014 00:09:04 -0500 Original-Received: from static-71-162-243-5.phlapa.fios.verizon.net ([71.162.243.5]:56027 helo=snark.thyrsus.com) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1W2DIC-0006e1-Dn for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 12 Jan 2014 00:09:00 -0500 Original-Received: by snark.thyrsus.com (Postfix, from userid 1000) id F01A238085A; Sun, 12 Jan 2014 00:08:59 -0500 (EST) Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <52D21EFA.1010905@cs.ucla.edu> X-Eric-Conspiracy: There is no conspiracy User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.21 (2010-09-15) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.2.x-3.x [generic] X-Received-From: 71.162.243.5 X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:168155 Archived-At: Paul Eggert : > Eric S. Raymond wrote: > >I think the fixed Makefile code would > >remain unpleasantly fragile, and the witness-path computation is > >best moved to the configure stage. > > I've never understood the need for having the > last-repository-change date affect the build, and > would favor removing all the vcswitness stuff. Here's what the src/Makefile.in says about it: ## VCSWITNESS points to the file that holds info about the current checkout. ## We use it as a heuristic to decide when to rebuild loaddefs.el. ## If empty it is ignored; the parent makefile can set it to some other value. It would make my life simpler if this mechanism were removed; that's one of only two dependencies of Cazaar in the entire build (the other one is in lisp/version.el). And the fact that the bug went undetected suggests that the mechanism wasn't very useful. Anyone want to argue for keeping this? Support removing it? Suggest something else? -- Eric S. Raymond