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It provides a standardized interface. This is just a long-winded way of saying it's popular. It's popular, therefore people know it, therefore they view whatev

It provides a standardized interface. This is just a long-winded way of saying it's popular. It's popular, therefore people know it, therefore they view whatever it does as "the standard." Kind of like... MS Windows? It is based on checking features. The feature-checking approach is slow and makes cross-compilation unnecessarily difficult. Plus a lot of the "features" that auto-conf checks for are things that haven't been an issue for decades, like "sizeof char"

viraptor 2y ago
Standardised doesn't mean popular. It means you know what --help, --enable-foo, DESTDIR, etc. will do and that you can rely on that format. It means packaging can rely on the same flow and common options for each package using autoconf. It then means that unless you've got very specific needs, your packaging can be abstracted to "here's the source, the name and the version - go!" and that's the abstraction many distros provide.
- hnfong 2y ago
  Yes, and everyone knows what those options are, and can expect the same flow for each package because... ... autoconf is popular.
  - wakawaka28 2y ago
    You're partly right but autoconf's design is pretty rigid. I've never seen one where the install destination isn't set via one of the standard flags like --prefix. But I have seen other build systems randomize their install processes. Maybe this is a function of what kind of people use each tool. Autotools is mainly adopted by experienced geeks. Other build systems are more beginner-friendly and that might result in less appropriate solutions being written.
    - jujube3 2y ago
      Once you leave behind the simple things like --prefix, it's not that standardized. But, arguing over this is futile, this wheel has been reinvented innumerable times.
  - viraptor 2y ago
    It works in practice. I've probably looked at over a thousand packages by now and haven't seen anybody do anything really weird.
wakawaka28 2y ago
Sizeof char is still an issue because it can be changed via additional compiler options. I don't know why anyone would do it but you have to know it sometimes. Just because you or someone else has not had a need to use a thing doesn't mean nobody uses it. Making a decision about that really ought to involve a lot of people. Cross-compiling with autotools seems like asking for trouble, but I bet it does do that. It even runs on Windows. I would discourage anyone from using it in general, but as a user it rarely causes problems for me.

viraptor 2y ago

Standardised doesn't mean popular. It means you know what --help, --enable-foo, DESTDIR, etc. will do and that you can rely on that format. It means packaging can rely on the same flow and common options for each package using autoconf. It then means that unless you've got very specific needs, your packaging can be abstracted to "here's the source, the name and the version - go!" and that's the abstraction many distros provide.

hnfong 2y ago
Yes, and everyone knows what those options are, and can expect the same flow for each package because... ... autoconf is popular.
- wakawaka28 2y ago
  You're partly right but autoconf's design is pretty rigid. I've never seen one where the install destination isn't set via one of the standard flags like --prefix. But I have seen other build systems randomize their install processes. Maybe this is a function of what kind of people use each tool. Autotools is mainly adopted by experienced geeks. Other build systems are more beginner-friendly and that might result in less appropriate solutions being written.
  - jujube3 2y ago
    Once you leave behind the simple things like --prefix, it's not that standardized. But, arguing over this is futile, this wheel has been reinvented innumerable times.
- viraptor 2y ago
  It works in practice. I've probably looked at over a thousand packages by now and haven't seen anybody do anything really weird.

wakawaka28 2y ago

Sizeof char is still an issue because it can be changed via additional compiler options. I don't know why anyone would do it but you have to know it sometimes. Just because you or someone else has not had a need to use a thing doesn't mean nobody uses it. Making a decision about that really ought to involve a lot of people. Cross-compiling with autotools seems like asking for trouble, but I bet it does do that. It even runs on Windows. I would discourage anyone from using it in general, but as a user it rarely causes problems for me.