On Wed, Jan 22, 2003 at 10:50:33AM +0200, Alan Barrett wrote:
  | My biggest gripe about build.sh is that some of the options that set
  | variables (-T TOOLDIR, -O MAKEOBJDIR, -M MAKEOBJDIRPREFIX, -D DESTDIR)
  | simply set the variables, whereas others have the side effect of
  | implying actions to be performed (-R RELEASEDIR, -i INSTALLWORLDDIR).  I
  | would prefer it if the options that set variables did not have any side
  | effects.  For example, I want to be able to say "set RELEASEDIR to this
  | value" without also implying "make release".  This would make it much
  | easier to write wrappers around build.sh.

I agree that `-R RELEASEDIR' hasn't got the most optimal behaviour.
However, it may be too late to change this (too many people might rely
upon the behaviour of -R).  This is why I added `-V var=value', to allow
arbitrary variable setting (such as RELEASEDIR) without invoking the
action that -R (et al) does.

For all the complaints we get about build.sh's current syntax, I can
imagine a similar (or greater) level of complaints if we actually
*changed* it.  ("ooooh, change. evil. change bad. no change."). 
A lose-lose siuation. :(


`-i idir' doesn't set INSTALLWORLDDIR in the same way that all other
variables set by build.sh are; it only temporarily sets it for the
duration of 'make installsets'.  The usage in build.sh and BUILDING
don't refer to the INSTALLWORLDDIR when documenting -i...


  | My second biggest gripe (which might be a subset of the above) is about
  | the fact that the "-i INSTALLWORLDDIR" option implies making a release,
  | instead of just installing an already-built release.  OK, you can force
  | it to be sensible by saying "-b -i INSTALLWORLDDIR" instead of just "-i
  | INSTALLWORLDDIR", but it's easy to forget.

The documentation `-i idir' does not imply "make a release" to me. 
All `-i idir' does is installs from DESTDIR to idir after the
buildtarget (which defaults to "build") completes.