Re: Up-to-date skeleton module?

[Malcolm Tredinnick <malcolm commsecure com au>]

On Sun, 2003-06-01 at 09:08, Gregory Merchan wrote:
> Is there an up-to-date skeleton module? Neither gnome-skel HEAD nor
> gnome-hello HEAD is up-to-date, as evidenced by the old-style AC_INIT.

Your question is not really the right one. "Up to date" does not carry a
clear meaning for GNOME packages, which are a mixture of different
styles, sometimes for good reason. There are a couple of paths to
choose:

(1) uses (requires) absolutely latest versions of libtool, autoconf,
automake.
(2) uses recent version of common GNOME stuff, but works with older
automakes or autoconf.

For option (1), glib, atk and libglade are a few examples. For option
(2), there are a number of packages we could point people to as
references (gnome-utils and bug-buddy are two I have used as examples
for others in the past and they are still relevant).

Using an old-style AC_INIT, or old-style AC_OUTPUT or calling the file
configure.in instead of configure.ac, etc is not really a sign of "out
of date" -- it's just not using the latest stuff. Eventually it might
have to be upgraded, but it will stil be valid for some time yet. It is
really up to individual package developers whether they want to upgrade
yet or not (both for community projects and their personal stuff). 

(Boy, that feels strange to type, since I am generally an advocate for
using commonly available recent stuff whenever possible to ease forwards
compatibility. I am becoming accomodating and pragmatic in my old age.)

That being said, gnome-hello is not really a good template for the build
structure. My reading of it is that it is just meant to build so that
people can focus on the code. Maybe we could fix up the errors in the
build stuff (don't call libtoolize, fix up the distcheck issues, install
PO files portably, etc), but the move has been away from doing that
(witness Murray's rewrite of the autogen.sh there), so I am reluctant to
dive in and "fix" something that is intended to be that way.

I didn't even realise gnome-skel existed, but it's obvious problem is
that it is targetted at some ancient GNOME 1 version presently. I can
update that pretty easily, though, to match current practice (/me adds
something to the TODO list).

Malcolm