Obsolete building in source dir?

[Richard Earnshaw]

On Wed, 2004-09-15 at 14:08, DJ Delorie wrote:
> > If we print out 'creating build directory in <target>-build...
> > configuring in <target>-build' then it's no-longer 'behind their back'.
> 
> Assuming the user catches that line in the heaping gobs of output
> configure produces (especially when builds are automated).  Better to
> say:
> 
> $ ./configure
> configure: Please create a separate build directory for builds including gcc.
> 
> $
> 
> ... so that the user KNOWS.

Why does the user have to KNOW this?  Why would they care?  We don't
assume that they have to know a lot of other things.  All they want to
do is build the compiler so they can install it.  I haven't seen a
single reason why they should care that this is done in a subdirectory
of the source rather than in the sources themselves.

R.