From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!.POSTED.blaine.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Paul Eggert Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: CHECK_STRUCTS/dmpstruct.h mechanism is broken. Date: Sun, 14 Apr 2019 16:29:50 -0700 Organization: UCLA Computer Science Department Message-ID: References: <20190228202146.GC4686@ACM> <20190228205955.GD4686@ACM> <20190410162203.GA4009@ACM> <9809d5ce-c1c4-48e9-6dac-489431b34067@cs.ucla.edu> <671ba8dd-894b-5698-d162-8901b1098b9a@cs.ucla.edu> <83k1g04al8.fsf@gnu.org> <93b861b3-41d2-e590-d4b8-46a4bb64bfe8@cs.ucla.edu> <8736mmxr2e.fsf@Rainer.invalid> <87h8b1yrsi.fsf@Rainer.invalid> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Injection-Info: blaine.gmane.org; posting-host="blaine.gmane.org:195.159.176.226"; logging-data="60853"; mail-complaints-to="usenet@blaine.gmane.org" User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:60.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/60.6.1 Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Achim Gratz Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Mon Apr 15 01:30:12 2019 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([209.51.188.17]) by blaine.gmane.org with esmtps (TLS1.0:RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:256) (Exim 4.89) (envelope-from ) id 1hFoZc-000FYA-RU for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 15 Apr 2019 01:30:08 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:41992 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1hFoZb-0001qz-Fv for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sun, 14 Apr 2019 19:30:07 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([209.51.188.92]:43418) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1hFoZP-0001qj-MP for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 14 Apr 2019 19:29:56 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1hFoZO-0007Gr-Pp for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 14 Apr 2019 19:29:55 -0400 Original-Received: from zimbra.cs.ucla.edu ([131.179.128.68]:41144) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.0:DHE_RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:32) (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1hFoZO-0007Ej-HX for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 14 Apr 2019 19:29:54 -0400 Original-Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by zimbra.cs.ucla.edu (Postfix) with ESMTP id 106F91616EC; Sun, 14 Apr 2019 16:29:52 -0700 (PDT) Original-Received: from zimbra.cs.ucla.edu ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (zimbra.cs.ucla.edu [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10032) with ESMTP id XUa5ZdtWTUs0; Sun, 14 Apr 2019 16:29:51 -0700 (PDT) Original-Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by zimbra.cs.ucla.edu (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3EC6F1616ED; Sun, 14 Apr 2019 16:29:51 -0700 (PDT) X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at zimbra.cs.ucla.edu Original-Received: from zimbra.cs.ucla.edu ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (zimbra.cs.ucla.edu [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10026) with ESMTP id D8Q-EgUW8Rqw; Sun, 14 Apr 2019 16:29:51 -0700 (PDT) Original-Received: from [192.168.1.9] (cpe-23-242-74-103.socal.res.rr.com [23.242.74.103]) by zimbra.cs.ucla.edu (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 15D421616D3; Sun, 14 Apr 2019 16:29:51 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: <87h8b1yrsi.fsf@Rainer.invalid> Content-Language: en-US X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 3.x X-Received-From: 131.179.128.68 X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.21 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" Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:235463 Archived-At: Achim Gratz wrote: > Another consideration for Emacs specifically would be how much extra > baggage we can afford to pack and still support all the systems that we > do now. Sure, but that is a reason to prefer Emacs as a candidate for switching from Autoconf/Automake to GNU Make. Unlike most other major GNU packages, Emacs already assumes GNU Make, so the switch won't introduce a dependency. Also, Emacs (unlike most other GNU packages) already avoids Automake and this has already prompted Gnulib to support packages that don't use Automake. I'm merely thinking of another step in this process, where Gnulib adds support for packages that don't use Autoconf either. Since Gnulib currently provides 2/3 of the code that goes into 'configure', this would be a good step toward moving Emacs away from Autoconf. Note that I'm not proposing to move away from the Autoconf Way of testing features rather than guessing them. I'm merely proposing a way to do that within the framework of GNU Make (which is parallelized) instead of m4+sh (which is not). > I still think that incrementally > improving autoconf is more likely to successfully (and quickly) move > things forward than trying to outright re-implement it. As a veteran of Autoconf I disagree, but the only way to resolve this is to see what happens. Parallelizing Autoconf is a much bigger project than transitioning GNU Emacs away from Autoconf, and nobody has seriously proposed attempting it. I think transitioning GNU Emacs is doable but to be honest the initial reactions here have not been encouraging and so my enthusiasm for the idea is lagging (for non-technical reasons, not for technical ones).