Re: built files in CVS

[Alexandre Duret-Lutz <duret_g at lrde dot epita dot fr>]

>>> "Tim" == Tim Van Holder <tim.van.holder@pandora.be> writes:

[...]

 Didier> Add XEmacs to your "glaring counter-examples". 

Plus GCC.

[...]

 Tim> Yes, but for autoconf and automake, this is a bit different, as
 Tim> an update is likely to bring in a file generated by the version
 Tim> you're downloading (e.g. updating your Automake 1.5j CVS tree
 Tim> brings you a Makefile.in generated by the next snapshot, 1.5k).
 Tim> So for autotools, not using a bootstrap script is likely to
 Tim> generate many more conflicts than a 'regular' project.

There is another difference, which I alway thought was the
reason why these files were kept in CVS (maybe I'm wrong since
nobody raised this before).  It's a chicken and egg problem: you
need Automake and Autoconf to generate these files, but you need
these files to build Autoconf and Automake.

If the generated files were removed from CVS, people would need
an older version of Autoconf/Automake to build the CVS version.
Thus that would also means Autoconf/Automake can't benefit from
the new features they add, because they must be configurable
with older versions of themselves.  (That's not the case here;
for instance the configure.ac shipped with Autoconf 2.50 can't
be compiled by 2.13.)

(This said, I'm among the people who don't put generated files
in CVS for their projects ; and I'm embarassed each time I need
to edit the output of 'cvs diff' to remove generated files, as
it happens with Automake.)
-- 
Alexandre Duret-Lutz