On Mon, Aug 14, 2006 at 03:53:40PM -0700, Russ Allbery wrote: > Steve Greenland <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> > The *real* problem with the whole autotools disaster is that it promotes > > a braindead idea of how to achieve portability: a #ifdef branch for > > every different system (or library version, or whatever), strewn > > throughout the entire codebase. Real portability involves understanding > > your target systems, learning where the rough edges and corner cases > > are, and developing proper abstractions to work around them. Oh, and > > actually learning the standard version of the language (if there is > > one), and being able to distinguish between "this is what the language > > says it will do" and "works for me". > I'm not sure you can really blame autotools for this. In a well-designed > application with a good portability abstraction layer, the autotools are > as good as any for providing the input required to create that portability > layer. Indeed, the only reason to use autoconf in the first place is if you're trying to *avoid* platform-specific ifdef mazes. That some authors happen to do an imperfect job of this isn't something that should be blamed on autoconf AFAICS. -- Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world. [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.debian.org/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
