[PD-dev] autoconf renovation

[IOhannes m zmoelnig]

Hans-Christoph Steiner wrote:
> Hey,

> 
> Right now, in the 'externals' section, there are many build systems  
> for different sections that reflect the build systems that the given  
> dev used before importing the code into CVS.  A couple of these use  
> their own private autoconf setups (pdstring, pdp, pidip, zexy, OSCx,  
> and probably others).  I personally think that there should be one  
> central autoconf system for everything.

my personal problem with this (as explained at length before), is that i 
desperately want an external to be self-contained  (apart from obvious 
dependencies like the pd-headers).

for me this implies the build-system to be modular and not depend on a 
an up-level configuration.
e.g. if i want to build "aconnect" external that lives in 
externals/iem/aconnect/ then i do not want to have to checkout 
externals/Makefile and what else and depend on a deep directory structure.
it should be enough to get externals/iem/aconnect/ and be able to 
compile the external (without having to know all the compiler and linker 
flags by heart)

i think this is really essential for my use of the externals.


having said all that, this doesn't mean that i think it a bad idea to 
provide information in a centralized manner.
the key point however is that the information should be provided to be 
pulled from a certain external's build-system rather than pushed to it.

what i mean by this is: each external should have a self-contained 
build-system that is able to build the external without any up-level 
dependencies. however, this build-system should respect environmental 
variables that are set by an up-stream configuration process, and which 
is therefore able to guarantee that all externals are actually 
configured the same way.

i don't know yet, how we could handle this generically for a master 
include-file. (config.h)


btw, before the pd-convention i have setup a wiki to discuss exactly 
this issues http://puredata.info/Members/zmoelnig/pdcon07/BuildIntegration/


mfg.asdr
IOhannes