Re: [ANNOUNCE] Lua 4.1 (work4)

[Daniel Silverstone <dsilvers@...>]

On Mon, Feb 18, 2002 at 07:45:45AM -0500, John D. Ramsdell wrote:
> The Lua 4.1 (work4) source distribution fails to use conventions for
> makefiles and configuration used by the open source community.  Please
> embrace this community by using autoconf to generate your config
> script, and create a makefile than follows the usual conventions for
> the all, clean, install, and uninstall targets.  Make it so that the
> INSTALL document is nothing other than the file included by all
> applications that follow the conventions.  Please make it easy to
> install your program.

Unfortunately the "Open Source Community" fails to accept that sometimes
people just plain don't like autoconf etc.

For example: I was able to automatically build lua (with the makefile
supplied, almost unchanged) on several architectures which are not UNIXes

Perhaps you would like to explain to us how autoconf helps portability to
these platforms.

Autoconf is designed to help programs cope with portability between slightly
posix systems -- since Lua is entirely ANSI C -- this kinda becomes
irrelevant.

Altering the makefiles to provide all, clean, install and uninstall targets
might be worthwhile, but in the end anyone who wants to use Lua will use it
in whatever way they see fit.

For most people, Lua will be installed via a package manager if they are
unable to cope with downloading it and installing it themselves.

Try looking at some of the reasons for why Lua chose simple Makefiles before
jumping into an attack on those choices.

Lua /is/ easy to install, perhaps not for people who don't know what they're
doing when they install software which isn't pre-packaged, but then again,
is that such a bad thing?

Regards,

Daniel Silverstone -- Packager in charge of Debian GNU/Linux Lua packages

-- 
Daniel Silverstone                               http://www.digital-scurf.org/
Hostmaster, Webmaster, and Chief Code Wibbler          Digital-Scurf Unlimited
GPG Public key available from keyring.debian.org               KeyId: 20687895
Always leave room to add an explanation if it doesn't work out.