[darcs-users] down with autoconf

John Meacham john at repetae.net
Thu May 15 16:12:50 UTC 2008


autoconf is a complicated program because it solves an inherently
complicated problem, taking at least a day to learn it doesn't seem that
out of the ordinary. It is a language, like haskell or C or anything. I
think a lot of the grotty autoconf out there is due to people just
copying configure.ac files from other projects without actually knowing
how it works... excessive autoconf tests that people just copy verbatim
are a pet peeve of mine.

Now, autoconf isn't ideal, but I am not sure of any other alternative
out there that are suitable. Replacing the functionality of automake
would also be a lot of work in general.

I think it would be an interesting project to work on, something nice
and declarative that compiled to portable 'sh'.

        John

-- 
John Meacham - ⑆repetae.net⑆john⑈


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