Agreed that this is an annoyance. Autoconf-generated configure scripts are definitely slow, mostly because they test a ton of things that probably don't still n

Agreed that this is an annoyance. Autoconf-generated configure scripts are definitely slow, mostly because they test a ton of things that probably don't still need to be tested. The overall system still provides a ton of value and a lot of relevant tests in addition to the not-so-relevant ones. After years of writing increasingly complex Makefiles to test for this-and-that, Autoconf was a breath of fresh air for me when I made the switch a couple of years ago (even with all of its crustiness).