> Of course, one would then be tempted (as I have been) to look more > seriously at porting the NetBSD package system to Plan 9. That's not > out of the question, in fact it's probably not too difficult, but the > residual pain of autoconf for each individual package has already > frightened people with a stronger stomach than mine away. That is why > I cannot suggest we catch up, but it may be nice to be ready when > eventually the autoconf edifice falls down and something mildly > intelligent takes its place! > > Ironically, Plan 9 may be the platform on which a replacement for > autoconf could be designed and implemented. But that's too close to a > pipedream to be given serious consideration.
Take a look at Boost's port of Perforce Software's build tool Jam <http://www.boost.org/doc/tools/jam/index.html>. What little I have used it in the past it came across as a much more elegant tool-chain. Now what I would LOVE to see is a port of Joel de Gusman's Spirit++. Well I can dream cannt I ;-) I've also started on updating an old per-application portage ebuild based on Anant's work back in 2007. If that is of any interest maybe I could get you to either collaborate or just do a little testing. EBo --
