Patch attached for documentation as per bug-automake list discussion.
Change log:
2008-02-23 Reuben Thomas <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
* doc/automake.texi: Improve "Why doesn't Automake support
wildcards" node's English and sense.diff --git a/doc/automake.texi b/doc/automake.texi
index c0ace40..2c5dcfa 100644
--- a/doc/automake.texi
+++ b/doc/automake.texi
@@ -9841,10 +9841,10 @@ version of the tools.
@section Why doesn't Automake support wildcards?
@cindex wildcards
-Developers are lazy. They often would like to use wildcards in
[EMAIL PROTECTED], so they don't need to remember they have to
-update @file{Makefile.am}s every time they add, delete, or rename a
-file.
+Developers are lazy. They would often like to use wildcards in
[EMAIL PROTECTED], so that they would not need to remember to
+update @file{Makefile.am}s every time they add, delete, or rename
+a file.
There are several objections to this:
@itemize
@@ -9858,27 +9858,22 @@ because you forgot to add a file in @file{Makefile.am}, it will help
you remember to @samp{cvs add} it.
@item
-Using wildcards makes easy to distribute files by mistake. For
+Using wildcards makes it easy to distribute files by mistake. For
instance, some code a developer is experimenting with (a test case,
-say) but that should not be part of the distribution.
+say) that should not be part of the distribution.
@item
Using wildcards it's easy to omit some files by mistake. For
-instance, one developer creates a new file, uses it at many places,
-but forget to commit it. Another developer then checkout the
-incomplete project and is able to run `make dist' successfully,
-even though a file is missing.
-
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
-Listing files, you control *exactly* what you distribute.
-If some file that should be distributed is missing from your
-tree, @samp{make dist} will complain. Besides, you don't distribute
-more than what you listed.
+instance, one developer creates a new file, uses it in many places,
+but forgets to commit it. Another developer then checks out the
+incomplete project and is able to run @samp{make dist} successfully,
+even though a file is missing. By listing files, @samp{make dist}
[EMAIL PROTECTED] complain.
@item
-Finally it's really hard to @file{forget} adding a file to
[EMAIL PROTECTED], because if you don't add it, it doesn't get
-compiled nor installed, so you can't even test it.
+Finally, it's really hard to @emph{forget} to add a file to
[EMAIL PROTECTED]: files that are not listed in @file{Makefile.am} are
+not compiled or installed, so you can't even test them.
@end itemize
Still, these are philosophical objections, and as such you may disagree,
@@ -9891,16 +9886,16 @@ not portable to other @command{make} implementations.
The only way Automake could support @command{$(wildcard ...)} is by
expending @command{$(wildcard ...)} when @command{automake} is run.
-Resulting @file{Makefile.in}s would be portable since they would
+The resulting @file{Makefile.in}s would be portable since they would
list all files and not use @samp{$(wildcard ...)}. However that
-means developers need to remember they must run @command{automake} each
+means developers would need to remember to run @command{automake} each
time they add, delete, or rename files.
-Compared to editing @file{Makefile.am}, this is really little win. Sure,
+Compared to editing @file{Makefile.am}, this is a very small gain. Sure,
it's easier and faster to type @samp{automake; make} than to type
@samp{emacs Makefile.am; make}. But nobody bothered enough to write a
-patch add support for this syntax. Some people use scripts to
-generated file lists in @file{Makefile.am} or in separate
+patch to add support for this syntax. Some people use scripts to
+generate file lists in @file{Makefile.am} or in separate
@file{Makefile} fragments.
Even if you don't care about portability, and are tempted to use
