[TUHS] Building programs (Re: Version 256 of systemd boasts '42% less Unix philosophy' The Register

[Alexis]

Larry McVoy <lm at mcvoy.com> writes:

> I've been up since 12:22am (psyched for fishing, couldn't sleep) 
> so
> maybe I'm not on point, but what is the problem that this 
> discussion
> is trying to solve?

The complexity of the autoconf-based build process contributed to 
the xz-utils backdoor attempt. (Here's Russ Cox's writeup: 
https://research.swtch.com/xz-script) So, to what extent is the 
complexity of autoconf _needed_ nowadays? For some cases, it's not 
needed (and might never have been needed). For others, it seems 
like it might still be needed. What about the in-between cases? 
Can we do something different that gets us 90% of what autoconf 
provides in those cases, but with only 10% of the complexity (to 
use those commonly-provided figures)?


Alexis.