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by akkartik 3229 days ago
The whole goal of this approach is to get out of the vicious cycle of build files generating other build files, so no `configure`.

`configure` is not in itself a feature. What purpose does it fulfill for you? Then we can discuss how we may serve that purpose in some more lightweight manner.
1 comments
blux 3229 days ago
I have the feeling your way of thinking is 'remove every abstraction so that we end up with a simpler system'. This works in some cases, but certainly not all of them. configure is one of them.

Why? Try removing a configure script for even a simple autotools project, and ensure that it still builds fine on all previously supported platforms by writing a cross platform Makefile. Good luck with that.

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akkartik 3229 days ago
"I have the feeling your way of thinking is 'remove every abstraction so that we end up with a simpler system'."

You're certainly right about that:

http://akkartik.name/about

http://akkartik.name/post/libraries2

https://lobste.rs/s/to8wpr/configuration_files_are_canary_wa...

:)

"This works in some cases, but certainly not all of them."

This too I'm totally willing to accept. I believe most abstractions are prematurely frozen and so poorly designed. But this makes me liable to err too far in the other direction.

"configure is one of them. Why? Try removing a configure script for even a simple autotools project, and ensure that it still builds fine on all previously supported platforms by writing a cross platform Makefile. Good luck with that."

Here we part ways. I think `configure` is one of the easiest cases for me to be sure of, and it's because I don't care about "all previously supported platforms". Many if not all of them are obsolete. Also, as rossy pointed out elsewhere in this thread (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15045076), it's impossible to know today if there's a bug in autotools for some rare platform.

We live in a world very different from the one autotools were built for, and it's almost a monoculture at this point. All that crap is utterly unnecessary today. I don't care about building software on all possible platforms, all I care about is building it on this one platform in front of me right now.

The most frustrating thing about autotools is that it's unclear which platform each individual check is concerned with. I have a whole mess of rules from 20 years ago -- and zero rationale for any of the rules. That makes even the few rules that are worth having a net liability because I can't separate them from all the useless ones.

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