[GRASS-dev] GRASS 6.3.0

[Frank Warmerdam]

Hamish wrote:
> William:
>> users who build from source may not have SWIG, and may not want to  
>> install something that's not used at runtime but only for compilation.
> 
> this sounds like a no-brainer to me. If a user wants to build from
> source, then they need to install the required -dev tools. end of story.

Hamish,

I disagree that it is a no-brainer.  It is a reasonable strategy to
decide to commit some intermediate files (such as bison, flex, autoconf,
and swig output) in order to make it less complicated for developers to
build from source.

It can be very challenging for new developers to get just the right
versions of all these things for one package, much less many.  For
instance, GDAL only works for a very narrow band of swig versions.
Other packages might only work with incompatible versions.  If most
developers aren't actually changing the swig generated files, while
force them to wrestle with versions for all these tools?

Well, the obvious reason, as you suggest is that keeping intermediate
files in source control can result out of date versions being used
as well as "source control churn".

All I would ask is that the project make a deliberate decision on
this, not just assume the answer is cut and dried.

I, for one, have been driven away from contribution to some packages
exactly because I could never seem to get and keep just the right
versions of various things.  I find this especially annoying with
autoconf.

Best regards,
-- 
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I set the clouds in motion - turn up   | Frank Warmerdam, warmerdam at pobox.com
light and sound - activate the windows | http://pobox.com/~warmerdam
and watch the world go round - Rush    | President OSGeo, http://osgeo.org