[Distutils] working on a build system

[Andrew Dalke]

> >   configure -- used to generate the Makefile and maybe other files;
> >      like a "make.dat" file which is include'd by all Makefiles.
>
>  I'd avoid using this name if it isn't an autoconf-generated
> configure file.

I disagree.  Unix people are used to
  ./configure
  make
  make tests
  make install

(sometimes leaving out the "make tests" :)

All that file is is an entry into the configuration system,
regardless of being generated from autoconf or even hand written.
I don't expect that anything I can generate will be useful by
everyone for everything, and someday an autoconf type configure
script will be needed (esp. for C/C++ code).  When that happens,
I expect that the new configure should be a drop-in replacement
for the existing one, and end users should not notice the change.

>   I suspect it would be trivial, but haven't written any POD
> documentation myself, so I'm probably not the one to do it.  ;-)

I've not used it either, but it seems to be the best solution
available.  I'll probably just use pod2text since we know that
tool exists on our systems.

> Most makes can't do nearly as much as GNU make; the most portable
> solution is "don't do that".

  True enough.  On one product I worked on we just shipped the
gmake binary (and source) for the different platforms, since we
couldn't get the Makefiles working everywhere.  That's what
taught me to start using $(MAKE) for recusive Makefiles.

  Still, according to the make documentation, I should be able to
have a single suffix rule that works the way I want it to, as in:

SUFFIXES: .dist

.dist:
	$(ECHO) Do something

but that doesn't work.  Luckily, I again get the luxury of designing
this for our in-house use, where I can mandate "we will use GNU make
for our Makefiles".

						Andrew
						dalke@bioreason.com