what a gwan?

• I heard some talk a while back about ways to get automake to shut up. It turns out it now can, using a new silent mode.

  It involves adding the following to configure.ac:

  m4_ifdef([AM_SILENT_RULES], [AM_SILENT_RULES])

  (using m4_ifdef so that the script continues to work with automake 1.10 and older)

  And passing the --enable-silent-rules flag to configure. Of course, it also involves updating your infrastructure to support automake 1.11, and prepending something like $(AM_V_GEN) on any custom Makefile actions you have .. but these are technicalities

  In fact, this autotools mythbuster document has a couple of other gems, such as how to implement non-recursive automake correctly.

• Been using my new Thinkpad X40 for a while. It’s nice having a computer new enough to run compiz. It’s also nice having a notebook with a 2 hour battery life, so I can take it up a hill and sit coding for longer than it took me to get there. I installed the Karmic beta, which keeps warning me that the disk is about to die, presumably because it reports a load cycle count of 92 billion. I take this value with a pinch of salt.
• Less than 24 hours before the summer of code ‘pencils down’ time. Tomorrow I will post a nice report on all the stuff I have done, it will very be exciting!