David Wheeler <david@kineticode.com> writes:
> Right, but me, while I compile lots of stuff, I don't understand
> configure or autconf at all. So I was completely unaware of this
> feature. I'm very pleased to know it now, of course. But I don't see
> how it could be any harm to add notes to the INSTALL file explicitly
> letting users know how to do stuff like this.
Just to clarify my point: what'd make sense to me is to describe this
generic autoconf behavior, and maybe include a small table listing some
of the more-likely-to-be-useful variables. ("configure --help" already
does that, on a very small scale.) It doesn't make much sense to me to
document two specific variables in a way that fails to draw the reader's
attention to the fact that there are many other ones. After all, the
reader might have some other problem to solve than "use this perl". If
he knows that there might be a way to solve it by setting a variable,
he's ahead of the game.
regards, tom lane