Re: systems requiring exit?

[Ilya N. Golubev]

> As I understand it,
> these are pre-1989 systems (or is it pre-1979?)

Looks like there is quite many systems called that.  Some of them are
actually modern ones on top of native ibm system.

To Howard Chu: was system exhibiting that broken `return' a native ibm
one originating that long ago?  Or more recent one on top of it?


> Autoconf, Automake etc. has never been intended to support
> retrocomputing.

Was it?  Already pointed out in the initial message on the topic,
<address@hidden> of Tue, 07 Nov 2006 22:39:10 +0300, that it
would mean completely different design.

> After all, systems which default shell has no functions are
> even more rare.  Most likely in all systems where `return' works
> properly shell also has functions.  (Please tell me if you know
> otherwise.)  So restricting use of autoconf to systems with proper
> `return' obviates vast majority of the uses of m4 in autoconf, and
> very much of autoconf complexity.

In other words, the approach as of <(autoconf) Portable Shell>,

> do not take
> advantage of features that were added after Unix version 7, circa 1977

is clearly retrocomputing.