Re: On Compatibility

[Alfred M\. Szmidt]

   It is hypothetically possible to get all of the configured files
   right by hand, but in practice we didn't have enough years in our
   expected lives to do it. Perhaps you can show us how to do
   it. Assistance would certainly be welcome.

Hack configure.ac, generate configure on another platform, continue
hacking untill port is done.  No need whatsoever to have autoconf on
the target system (you could even cross compile!).

   Sure it is. Consider bash.

So lets consider bash, what is wrong with it?  You state no arguments
why it is bad, only that it is based on ksh, which was based on sh and
that it dates back to the beginning of UNIX.

Emacs must be complete and utter crap if you base things based on how
long they have existed... And you'd be suprised how similar todays
Emacs is to the Emacs that ran on ITS.

   Or m4. Hell, even Stu Feldman thought m4 was crap, and he wrote it!

Care to give an actual reason why m4 is crap?  It does what it does
quiet well, like C, which is infact far worse than M4.