Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Call for opinion. Breaking out cmd-* from libarch

[Tom Lord]

    > From: address@hidden (James Blackwell)

    > Can anybody explain to me why we're not using autoconf? Its got
    > problems, but at least I can make that one do what I want. :)

Um..... you sent me an off-list message describing some of the bugs
you aren't sure how to solve.

Please accept this gently but: you may be able to get autoconf to "do
what you want" but you are missing some fundamentals about how linking
works.

Don't pick an f'ed up tool like autoconf just to avoid learning
something (which is fairly simple) like linking foo.

It'd take hours/days and pages and pages to point out all the subtle
problems with the ac framework and why it needs to be killed.

Short executive summary: p-f isn't the replacement for ac *in general*
yet --- but it shelters arch from ac induced bogosities.  By quite a
lot.  It's easy to get from p-f to something even better, but going to
ac would be a major regression.

-t