Re: changequote

[Mirar]

> Sorry, that's exactly the converse: what the heck is this idea that
> one can write program without paying attention to the programming
> language?  M4 is a programming language, it comes with its rules, and
> if you disregard them, _you_ are wrong.

In this case, from my viewpoint, using quoting in a blackbox macro is
disregarding m4 rules.

> Nevertheless, don't be afraid, it's Autoconf itself which is guilty:
> it has propagated this stupid idea that by default there should be no
> quotation but where needed.  IMNSHO this was stupid and dangerous.

Since m4 environment will not let you change the environment
(changequote) if you need to use quoting in macros, I think this was a
good idea. I think major the design miss was to use m4 in the first
place, since it doesn't work well in API-to-black-box environments.

> Today the situation has improved, and I do believe things are simpler
> for they are homogeneous.  If you want to learn the whys and hows
> about M4 quotation, read the CVS Autoconf documentation.

Yes, but what you will lose is two things: autoconf is no longer m4,
and it's no longer backwards compatible with older autoconfs. May I
suggest that the verison is bumped to autoconf 3 to avoid this
confusion in the future?

I agree that a homogenous environment is probably a very very good
thing, though.

/Mirar