Sometimes, because SCM does not strictly remember the timestamp of files, the generated Makefile will think that it needs to re-run "autoreconf -i" or the equivalent to recreate Makefile.in from Makefile.am, configure with configure. ac etc.
How to prevent this?
I want to prevent this because it causes the following problems:
- when creating a dist archive (git archive --format = tar ...) the timestamp will be incorrect and the problem will be there for end users. Not cool.
- On slow systems, this makes compilation much longer, because it no longer configures, does not, installs, but configures, autoreconf -i, configure, make make install.
I know that I can “touch” the generated files before I create the archive-archive, but, in my opinion, it solves the problem only for tarballs, and not for developers. It's also an ugly hack to get around an inaccuracy that should just be turned off. In addition, it splits the git archive, as timestamps will not always be correct there.
Other SCMs also have this, so the problem is not (IMO) with git.
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