Re: (Off-Topic) Autoconf

[ams]

   Setting aside the use of M4, which is another abomination,

M4 is quite a good choice for this.

   the fundamental design flaw in autoconf is that it tests
   compatibility by executing programs on the target platform rather
   than consulting a database.

I don't know of any test that does this that is distributed with
autoconf.  Maybe you mean tests that people have writtten, then this
is true, but then it isn't a flaw in the test not in autoconf.  Also,
you can make autoconf use a database, it is called a config.cache
file, and I often use it for bash 2.x which had a broken set of tests
(3.x fixed this, instead it just defaults to some semi-sane value and
spits out a warning).

   how exactly do you test the integer size on a cross target?

By not depending on the integer size.

   Have you tried building a cross compiler lately with GCC?

I have, quite easy, far easier than it was a few years ago.

   Finally, the design of autoconf does not promote portability.

It does promote portability.  But people are often ignorant as to
writting good configure.ac scripts, which is a pita if you try to
write your own specific tests.  But it is a less pain than writting
the old Makefiles with a bazillion macros that you need to define
manually.