Re: Switch to Automake?

[Xue Fuqiao <xfq.free@gmail.com>]

On Sun, Dec 13, 2015 at 9:40 PM, Mathieu Lirzin <mthl@gnu.org> wrote:
> Hi,

Hi Mathieu,

> In order to improve the maintainability of Emacs and to enforce the
> usage of conventions described by GNU Coding Standards, I think it would
> be a good idea to use Automake in Emacs build system.

Wikipedia says that Emacs uses Automake[1] ;-)
Although IIUC only lib/ (which is imported from Gnulib) uses Automake.

I think documenting the Emacs build system (i.e., how Emacs uses
Autoconf, Make/Automake and Gnulib) is really helpful for developers who
are not familiar with the GNU build system, like me.  I'm aware of
`(info "(elisp) Building Emacs")', but it only explains the `temacs'
executable file, the `loadup', `site-load', and `site-init' libraries,
the doc strings in `etc/DOC', and some functions.  It doesn't mention
how Emacs uses Autotools.

> Before starting to work on the conversion, I would like to know if such
> change would be accepted.  If yes I would like to request some advices
> on how to proceed or comments about any potential issue.

Maybe Paul and Eli can comment on this suggestion.  I've added them to Cc.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automake#Notable_applications_that_use_Automake