From autoconf Mon Jan 25 15:29:36 2021 From: "David A. Wheeler" Date: Mon, 25 Jan 2021 15:29:36 +0000 To: autoconf Subject: Re: Future plans for Autotools Message-Id: X-MARC-Message: https://marc.info/?l=autoconf&m=161158870003033 Zack, thanks for the interesting analysis. In the *short* term, I think =E2=80=9Ccreate a CI system=E2=80=9D is the = critical first step. Since the autotools are all about supporting many = platforms, if possible that infrastructure should support VMs with many = different targets (many Linuxes, MacOS, Windows, some *BSDs, etc.). I = looked for something supporting FreeBSD & found this: = https://cirrus-ci.org/ . I don=E2=80=99t know = if it=E2=80=99s any good. If that=E2=80=99s too hard, at least create a = CI system with a few targets. A CI system with even just a few targets = would be better than nothing. I think long delays between releases create their own problems. If a = release was no more than a year apart, releases would be much easier & = less stressful. A new release, even if it=E2=80=99s just a few bug = fixes, would signal =E2=80=9Cwe=E2=80=99re alive=E2=80=9D & help people = who needed those fixes. In my mind, the key advantage of autoconf is its =E2=80=9Ccheck for what = works=E2=80=9D instead of quirk-list approach, and that end-users = don=E2=80=99t need to install much (except a few Unix tools like a = shell). It would be great for the autotools to have better Windows = support. One of the biggest set of challenges in the use of m4. To my knowledge, = the main reason to use m4 was because some shells didn=E2=80=99t support = shell functions. At this point that=E2=80=99s historical. I think it=E2=80= =99d be possible to slowly rewrite macros as =E2=80=9Cnormal calls=E2=80=9D= to functions, and over time make it possible to use autoconf without = using m4 at all. That would however be a long-term goal, not something = done quickly. --- David A. Wheeler