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From: Lyndon Nerenberg <lyndon@orthanc.ab.ca>
Organization: The Frobozz Magic Homing Pigeon Company
To: jos@catnook.com
Cc: Sergey Babkin <babkin@bellatlantic.net>,
	Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com>, freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject: Re: Improving GNU make compatibility in BSD make (+ patch) 
In-reply-to: Your message of "Sun, 02 Jun 2002 19:14:55 -0701."
             <20020603021517.GA11452@lizzy.catnook.com> 
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>>>>> "Jos" == Jos Backus <jos@catnook.com> writes:

    Jos> I just checked the Open Group make definition and I can't find
    Jos> either $^ or $>. So if we want to be truly standards-compliant
    Jos> perhaps we should remove support for $> :-)

We are POSIX compliant right now (I think -- I haven't done a strict
comparison between (our) BSD make and POSIX). BSD does have things that
aren't in POSIX, as does GNUmake. Removing the historical BSD syntax
would just break things, so I wouldn't advocate that. We can depricate
the BSD extensions if that seems useful. That's not the same as adding
new incompatible extensions to make (ours, GNUs, or anyone elses).
Writing portable makefiles is already enough of a pain in the ass.

--lyndon (death to feeping creaturism!)

(And yes, I would really miss the BSD/GNU if/then/else makefile
constructs if we went POSIX-anal on this.)

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