Reuben Thomas wrote: > the expectation is that you already have all tests > passing before you start the release procedure.
Exactly. It makes no sense to work on the packaging details of code that doesn't even pass its self-tests. So, if the developer is not yet in the phase where releasing is appropriate, he will waste time by doing "make distcheck": because "make distcheck" will take some time running "make dist", "configure", and "make", before it comes to the "make check" that will fail. > why not indeed reduce to "make syntax-check distcheck"? It is reassuring and saves time, while hunting down packaging bugs, to know that the source code is a priori reasonably correct. That's why "make check" should come before "make distcheck". I have no opinion about the position of "make syntax-check" - is it better to have it before or after "make check"? Bruno -- In memoriam Bahriye Üçok <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bahriye_Üçok>
