[Python-Dev] Verbosity of the Makefile

[Guido van Rossum]

> On 01 September 2000, Neil Schemenauer said:
> > I'm going to pipe up again about non-recursive makefiles being a good
> > thing.  This is another reason.

Greg Ward:
> +1 in principle.  I suspect un-recursifying Python's build system would
> be a pretty conclusive demonstration of whether the "Recursive Makefiles
> Considered Harmful" thesis hold water.  Want to try to hack something
> together one of these days?  (Probably not for 2.0, though.)

To me this seems like a big waste of time.

I see nothing broken with the current setup.  The verbosity is taken
care of by "make -s", for individuals who don't want Make saying
anything.  Another useful option is "make --no-print-directory"; this
removes Make's noisiness about changing directories.  If the pgen
output really bothers you, then let's direct it to /dev/null.  None of
these issues seem to require getting rid of the Makefile recursion.

If it ain't broken, don't fix it!

--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.pythonlabs.com/~guido/)