Nice-to-have fix for autogen.sh

[Pete Batard]

On 2012.02.01 14:23, Segher Boessenkool wrote:
>>>> Actually I also do not like to have the configure line
>>>> in autogen.sh.
>>>
>>> Me neither. Any other opinions?
>>
>> Really?
>>
>> That's how all of the autogen.sh I know behave,
>
> I asked Xiaofan for example projects that do not do it, so can
> you give some examples of those that do?

I'm working with the libcdio guys at the moment, so libcdio's autogen 
does invoke configure with --enable-maintainer (logging is handled 
outside of configure). freeciv's autogen also invokes configure. I've 
seen versions of libpopt and expat do that too. If you want more, I can 
probably dig some more.

>> o autogen.sh is only used by maintainers - official distributions
>> would have a configure (and Makefile) ready to use, so no need for
>> autogen.
>
> That is not an argument for either way.

Well, I think it quite restricts the scope of the people who are 
expected to find that having an autogen that runs configure is an annoyance.

>> o maintainers have a fairly good idea of the options they want to have
>> by default during development (--enable-maintainer-mode, debugging on,
>> etc.) so they might as well enable them while accepting extra
>> configure options through the use of $*.
>
> I don't know about you, but I do not usually want any of the options
> that are enabled by default (except for maintainer mode some of the
> time).

I don't know about you, but when I'm one of the lead developers of a 
project, I tend to want to set options that I think will benefit both 
myself and others by default.

I strongly believe that the default for any developers who wants to 
contribute to libusbx should be to have logging. Eliminates the 
annoyance of "oh, it broke down - darn I don't have logging". We've also 
been getting quite a lot reports on the libusb-devel mailing from people 
who don't have logging turned on, so it always adds an extra delay to 
get relevant info.

This is what I am considering for wanting to have logging on by default 
in git, and also the main reason why I went over the decision of Daniel 
not to have toggleable logging and provide it by default in both my 
branch and the binaries I release.

>> o if you're going to be rebuilding a lot from a clean tree, it saves
>> time not to have to invoke 2 autogen and then configure.
>
> If you're building a lot, you probably should run some ./build
> anyway ;-)

Why should I, when the default autogen.sh is just fine?

> Let's go with the principle of least surprise, so do what most
> projects do (or the most authoritative ones).

Let's go with the principle of what will be most helpful for our users. 
removing logging in the git repo isn't because it adds delay and/or can
prevent relevant information from being reported.

Regards,

/Pete