[starseeker]

That's actually quite interesting - I remember similar comments (Phd required, or Phds aren't able to understand it) cropping up in discussions of the GNU autotools toolchain. (With a fair bit if justification, in my own experience, although I understand the results tended to be better for those who were shell script gurus...)

[bsder]

Autotools is actually quite simple to understand.

If your install needs autotools, your install is broken. :)

The number of projects that need autotools in this day and age is vanishingly small. A small script (bash/python/perl/ruby) that checks exactly what you need and then runs make instead of copying 15 years of cargo cult m4 is far superior to autotools.