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I would be willing to spend an incredible effort to keep something POSIX instead of using autotools ( https://varnish-cache.org/docs/2.1/phk/autocrap.html https
by maxlybbert 6y ago
I would be willing to spend an incredible effort to keep something POSIX instead of using autotools ( https://varnish-cache.org/docs/2.1/phk/autocrap.html https://varnish-cache.org/docs/2.1/phk/autocrap.html ). They may have been an acceptable solution to a problem before the turn of the century, but things have changed enough that I’m not convinced they’re still delivering much bang for the buck.
- wahern 6y agoAnd yet Varnish is still using not only autoconf, but also automake. I've never had the need for automake, but autoconf feature tests are still useful. Not because of POSIX compat headaches, but because of the steady addition of new interfaces and the reimplementation of old ones. musl libc hadn't even made its initial release when the above tirade was written, yet there's a good chance Varnish built against musl because of those autoconf feature tests. This comes from someone who has invested a significant amount of time trying to implement pretty much exactly what PHK is advocating: https://github.com/wahern/autoguess https://github.com/wahern/autoguess I don't reach out for autoconf reflexively, but I fully appreciate why people do make use of it.