Re: [PATCH] Fix typo in Makefile.am to make it agree with Makefile.in.

[John Darrington <john at darrington dot wattle dot id dot au>]

On Thu, May 03, 2018 at 05:26:48PM -0700, Jim Wilson wrote:

     I noticed this today while trying to modify Makefile.am and regenerate
     Makefile.in.  I ended up with a change to Makefile.in that I didn't make.  The
     problem is a minor bug in a recent patch from Christophe Lyon
         https://sourceware.org/ml/binutils/2018-04/msg00216.html
     

This highlights an issue which I've regarded as strange ever since I've been 
looking at the binutils repostory:   

What on earth are files such as Makefile.in,  configure, and many other 
generated files doing in the repository in the first place?

As I see it, the purpose of the repository is to hold the source code.  That
is to say files which have been typed by someone.  If a file has been generated
(either by autoconf, automake, gettext, a script or whatever), then it has
no business being in the the repository.   Firstly it is redundant, secondly it
forces unnecessary merge conflicts, thirdly it causes confusion in cases such
as this, and fourthly if a something breaks, it might go unnoticed for some
time.

I suggest that all generated files are removed from the repo, (and a bootstrap 
script, or auxiallary Makefile be introduced to regenerate them).

J'

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