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

[storm@cua.dk (Kim F. Storm)]

Karl Fogel <kfogel@floss.red-bean.com> writes:

> In other words, the purpose of autogen.sh is to get your working copy
> to the "same" state as a distribution tarball, at least as far as the
> build procedure is concerned.

This is obviously not the case for the CVS emacs autogen.sh, so 
couldn't ./autogen.sh simply print a message telling the user to
follow the steps described in the (unmodified) INSTALL-CVS file?

> +Therefore, to build from a CVS working copy, you should first run
> +   ./autogen.sh

With the proposed change to use autogen.sh, the text in INSTALL-CVS
becomes more cryptic and less useful, e.g.

> -Normally, it is not necessary to use "make bootstrap" after every CVS
> -update.  Unless there are problems, we suggest the following
> -procedure:

Here you entirely remove the "recompile" instructions -- assuming that
the user will run autogen.sh _again_ to get those instructions.  Not
very likely IMO.

Also for non-POSIX systems has become more cryptic ... instead of
simply stating that the user should run e.g. nt/configure.bat instead
of configure, it instructs the user to study the autogen.sh script
to determine what to do.

>  
> +Users of non-Posix systems (MS-Windows etc.) should follow the
> +procedure in autogen.sh, but run the appropriate platform-specific
> +configuration scripts (nt/configure.bat, config.bat, etc.) before the
> +"make bootstrap" or "make" step; the rest of the procedure is


All in all, I think the proposed changes is a change to the worse,
making it harder rather than easier to build and maintain a CVS emacs
checkout.

But I like the header lines you added in the INSTALL-CVS file :-)

As I suggested, the following autogen.sh would suffice:

        #!/bin/sh
        echo "Please read INSTALL-CVS for instructions how to build emacs."

-- 
Kim F. Storm <storm@cua.dk> http://www.cua.dk