Hi Christoph,
I advice everybody so seek alternatives.
I'm sorry to hear it. My own personal experience (with my sysadmin hat
on) is that all alternatives have been inferior. Which is, ultimately,
why I choose to spend my time here.
I would love to see any minor improvement, as the documentation left
me puzzled multiple times.
Me too. But no single document can easily answer everyone's questions
every time. If there are specific lacuna or unclear things in the
manual, then I'm happy to work on that.
Nobody wants to rewrite Automake in Rust or replace M4 by Python ;-)
Ok, good. That sort of thing is exactly what I was imagining :).
My interpretation for Autocond and Automake would be to adjust issues
with newer version of the used technologies
I don't think there is any "technology", i.e., program, where we can
assume a newer version. Whenever we try to use some "new" feature of,
say, Perl (like, a mere decade or two old), we get complaints.
And let's not talk about shells.
or adjusting tests to newer C and C++ standards and the stricter
interpretation of modern compilers.
Ok, but we have to continue to support older compilers. This is one of
the biggest problems nowadays. Trying to support tool X on system Y,
where every release of the tool and every release of the OS have a
different set of bugs and/or requirements. It's maddening.
It could also help out on the way to Automake 2.0.
As long as I'm the primary person driving Automake, there will not be an
Automake 2.0. I have no plans to ever work on that, and see no need for
it, either.
Just keeping up with the churn induced by language "standard" committees
and compiler and OS backward incompatibilities, which are done at the
drop of a hat nowadays, is clearly beyond me. It is very frustrating to
have to work so hard to stay in the same place.
Do you feel like not trying it in the first place?
Let me ask this: if we end up being accepted, what are we committing
ourselves to do? Anything? (wrt to the neighborhoodies or the
government.) Submit a report?
Assuming we aren't forced to do things like accept patches we don't
want, or explain endlessly how m4 works, overall, I guess my feeling is
that there's probably no harm in trying. Despite our skepticism, maybe
we will be pleasantly surprised and get some useful results. That would
be nice.
I have a bunch of wording issues with your proposed text, but that is minor.
Thanks,
Karl
