Re: autotools alternatives, is anybody using autosetup?

[Miles Bader <miles@...>]

William Ahern <william@25thandClement.com> writes:
> M4 is deviously simple. It's autoconf that makes M4 seem difficult
> and arcane.

Naw, typical autoconf files are very straight-forward.

> The better alternative to autoconf is usually nothing, IMO.

This is only true for the most trivial cases (which, to be fair, may
include many lua projects), and often not even then, because even
trivial autoconf files are usually much simpler than the equivalent
shell-script.

Remember, autoconf input files _are_ essentially shell scripts, except
that they give you easy mechanisms to accomplish common configuration
tasks; you choose the degree to which you use these mechanisms though.
Writing everything yourself in shell is obviously possible, but
typically means you just end up simply duplicating what the autoconf
authors have done, usually in a less functional, more buggy, and less
portable way.

-miles

-- 
Quack, n. A murderer without a license.