Improved build System

[Magnus Ihse Bursie]

On 2011-10-03 03:41, Mike Duigou wrote:
> Is it intended long term that the autoconf result will always be checked in?
You mean the generated 'configure' script? Yes, this is the intent. 
Otherwise we would have to require the autotools to be present at the 
system, which is contrary to our intent (that is, minimizing the number 
of local dependencies).

> Have you considered using an autogen.sh aka buildconf (http://buildconf.brlcad.org/) based bootstrap? Might make things a little simpler.

I had a look at the web page, but I couldn't really figure out the 
point. Is the intent to provide some kind of "./configure for ./configure"?

> I'm also surprised at the size of the configure.ac file and nervous about how big it will get once all configs are supported.
As Fredrik said, we will make it more structured before we are finished.
> Can any of the library detection be simplified into a common macro?

Probably. I'm currently working on this, but unfortunately autoconf and 
M4 macros are somewhat limited in expressibility and some duplication 
might unfortunately be needed. But the intent is to view the 
configure.ac, as well as the makefiles, as proper code that needs to be 
addressed using the same care and good programming style as the rest of 
the code base.

> Do we expect that the ant detection and --with-ant will be necessary?

At least during the first step, we will not really change the build 
dependencies. You are not alone in wishing that ant would not be needed, 
but unfortunately it will stay needed for a while, as far as I know.

/Magnus