Re: Please look at Bootstrapper

[Akim Demaille]

>>>>> "Alexandre" == Alexandre Oliva <address@hidden> writes:

Alexandre> - decoupling the intelligence of which automake, libtool,
Alexandre> etc scripts to run away from autoconf's autoreconf, in such
Alexandre> a way that it might be simpler to add support for new
Alexandre> configuration tools.  Just like today we have libtoolize
Alexandre> and gettextize, I'm sure we may have more of those in the
Alexandre> future, and autoreconf and bootstrapper are the perfect
Alexandre> tools in which to introduce knowledge about such additional
Alexandre> scripts.  

Well, even for such a goal, in a couple of line changes one can
implement autoreconf -n, --just-print, --dry-run, --recon, and just
paste the output in something named bootstrap.

Alexandre> I see decoupling of such tools from autoconf as a
Alexandre> reasonable goal, just because I don't think packages such
Alexandre> as autoconf should be released very often.  

It definitely should!  Maybe not because of brand new feature, but at
least because it saves some maintainers from additional useless
maintenance.  For instance, Paul and Jim are often ahead from
Autoconf, because their packages are very exposed to new systems.
It's a pain to see them maintain upgraded Autoconf macros for a long
period because it's more work for them, and less benefits for the
others.

Alexandre> To summarize my points: I think there may be value in
Alexandre> splitting autoreconf away from autoconf, but I don't see
Alexandre> any value in duplicating it.

I don't agree with you here.  In particular because doing the job
properly requires at least traces, so it does put some requirements
over Autoconf.  This tool has to be tightly bound to Autoconf (read,
shipped with), since configure.ac is the chef d'orchestre of the whole
suite.