
GNU Autotools (aka GNU Build System) - peter_d_sherman
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Autotools
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peter_d_sherman
One finds a description of GNU Autotools (aka the GNU Build System) on this
page...

One also finds the following quote:

"In his column for ACM Queue, FreeBSD developer Poul-Henning Kamp criticized
the GNU Build System:[8]

 _The idea is that the configure script performs approximately 200 automated
tests, so that the user is not burdened with configuring libtool manually.
This is a horribly bad idea, already much criticized back in the 1980s when it
appeared, as it allows source code to pretend to be portable behind the veneer
of the configure script, rather than actually having the quality of
portability to begin with. It is a travesty that the configure idea survived.

Kamp sketches the history of the build system in the portability problems
inherent in the multitude of 1980s Unix variants, and bemoans the need for
such build systems to exist:

the 31,085 lines of configure for libtool still check if <sys/stat.h> and
<stdlib.h> exist, even though the Unixen, which lacked them, had neither
sufficient memory to execute libtool nor disks big enough for its 16-MB source
code."_

Now, I don't know if I personally agree with that criticism -- but I think of
Poul-Henning Kamp's quote as something to be potentially reviewed and/or
thought about, by developers of future cross-platform build systems...

