Re: configure gaps

On lör, 2010-10-02 at 13:01 -0400, Andrew Dunstan wrote:
> Specifically, a) when python was installed but python-devel was not, 
> configure passed by the compile for python failed quite miserably, and 

Yeah.  Same is true if libperl-dev or similar is not installed.

> b) with gettext installed but not gettext-tools (and in particular 
> xgettext was missing), the NLS stuff failed.

xgettext is not required for the build.

> ISTM that if we pass configure, we should be able to assume that the 
> requisite build tools, libraries, include files etc. are present.

Technically, the primary purpose of configure is to (a) record the
user's configuration choices, and (b) set up substitutions for necessary
features that the OS does not provide.  It should not be the place that
is forecasting the errors that the actual build tools might encounter.

That said, some gentle tweaks to improve user-friendliness might not be
wrong.