Re: Change gdb/common/ to use Automake

[Tom Tromey <tromey@redhat.com>]

>>>>> "Pedro" == Pedro Alves <pedro@codesourcery.com> writes:

Pedro> On Monday 14 February 2011 19:33:39, Tom Tromey wrote:
>> I can check into it if this idea seems ok.

Pedro> Sorry, I really don't know enough to comment.  I've never
Pedro> really maintained anything that used automake.  Maybe someone
Pedro> else will comment.  As long as we have auto-dependencies, it's
Pedro> cool with me.  I'd love to have them on gdbserver too.

Automake has two problems that people sometimes dislike.
They are both similar to existing problems with Autoconf.

First, we would want to check in generated files, to make it easy to
check out and build gdb.  This means that anybody modifying the source
file will need to use the correct version of Automake, to avoid churn in
the repository.

Second, the output of the tool is fairly opaque.  So, when something
goes wrong, you have another layer of goo to wade through.

I don't consider these to be major problems, since I don't actually
spend much time at all modifying the build setup.  My view is that for
reasonably simple things, like common/, Automake saves a lot of time.
But YMMV.

One thing worth noting is that a lot of 'src' and 'gcc' are already
using Automake.  So it isn't as if this would be adding a new dependency
or breaking new ground in any way.

Tom