Re: Release next week?

[Russ Allbery]

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

> Alexandre> I hate Perl.  Really.  I mean it.

> I hate it less than I used to, but it is still definitely not my
> favorite.  I like it much more than sh though (both Bourne sh, and
> modern versions such as Zsh and Bash).

The main problem with writing stuff in shell is that either you have to
write in an incredibly primitive dialect of Bourne or you have to require
a particular shell.  Although these days, you may be able to get away with
writing in /bin/ksh, which would at least let you use shell functions.

But even with that, shell scripting requires so many other system tools
like sed and expr and the like that are frequently completely broken that
you either write really horrendous shell code or you end up requiring the
GNU tools on some platforms.

Shell is therefore only really portable without effort if you limit
yourself to the most ugly and unmaintainable shell possible.

> Alexandre> I'd much rather go for Python or some other readable
> Alexandre> scripting language.

> Honestly, I didn't even mention Python because I think it is too strong
> a required as opposed to Perl.  But if Python is accepted, I'd be happy
> to learn it and use it for Autoconf.

> I don't know if Guile is a serious candidate.

> But really, let's bury sh.

> So?  Let's give a try to Python?  Move to Perl 5.5?  Other?

Well, the ideal is to not make autoconf depend on another package besides
m4 (which is a dead-simple installation), so that it remains easy to use
it.  Failing that, you want it to depend on a package that's simple and
easy to install, or that's utterly ubiquitous, or both.

Perl is not simple and easy to install.  It is, however, about the most
ubiquitous language available outside of Bourne, Korn, C-shell (which
isn't even worth thinking about -- *shudder*), and C.  You'll probably
find more systems with Perl than with a working C++ compiler.

Python isn't nearly as ubiquitous, in part because it's newer.  Python is
also difficult to compile and install (slightly more so than Perl in my
experience, and definitely in the class of a "major package" that would be
pretty intimidating for someone who wasn't comfortable compiling and
installing software).

Guile is rarely seen at *all* outside of Linux distributions.  I don't
know how hard it is to build, but I bet it's smaller than either Python or
Perl just because it's smaller and simpler.  Using Guile would mean that
the average user of autoconf had to install a separate package to continue
using it, though.

I hate to say this, but C *is* pretty portable, and you can probably
assume that all maintainers who use autoconf have a C compiler available.
I suppose that the sort of string manipulation that autoconf wants to do
is pretty much a non-starter in C?

-- 
Russ Allbery (address@hidden)             <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>