A Cry For Sanity

[Andrew Haley]

Andrew John Hughes wrote:
> Is there a particular reason we keep generated files (configure,
> aclocal.m4, Makefile.in) in the repository?  I ideally like to remove
> them for the following reasons:

It's much easier for a person who just wants to download and build
not to have to regenerate the auto* scripts.  autotools are notoriously
sensitive to having the exact versions installed.  If we check in the
generated scripts they do not have to run auto* locally.  It's about
lowering the barrier to entry: if we don't check in the generated
scripts it'll be much harder for people to get started.

Now, one other thing: we should not regenerate the scripts with a
simple configure and make.  If someone wants to change the
generated scripts, that should be a *deliberate act*.

> Anyone capable of
> installing Mercurial can surely also install the autotools?

That's an attitude problem.  There are far more people building
than merging, and you're favouring the core developers, thus
raising the barrier to entry.

Andrew.