Emphasize that ease of configure triumphs over ease of autoconf.

* doc/autoconf.texi (Introduction): Expand on primary
vs. secondary goal of autoconf.
* THANKS: Update.
Inspired by Paul Smith.

Signed-off-by: Eric Blake <ebb9@byu.net>

diff --git a/ChangeLog b/ChangeLog
index b017fcb352f089ba439dca076284cc8a5427e13b..d676859dddf976308abdae545ae3878483f94805 100644 (file)
--- a/ChangeLog
+++ b/ChangeLog
@@ -1,3 +1,11 @@
+2008-03-19  Eric Blake  <ebb9@byu.net>
+
+       Emphasize that ease of configure triumphs over ease of autoconf.
+       * doc/autoconf.texi (Introduction): Expand on primary
+       vs. secondary goal of autoconf.
+       * THANKS: Update.
+       Inspired by Paul Smith.
+
 2008-03-17  Ralf Wildenhues  <Ralf.Wildenhues@gmx.de>
 
        * lib/Autom4te/FileUtils.pm (handle_exec_errors): New argument

diff --git a/THANKS b/THANKS
index 8d83bbddb772d63d45f5fa4659aa7e769980bec8..e3102c1e44c2a60e4d387d6cc764090204dfb821 100644 (file)
--- a/THANKS
+++ b/THANKS
@@ -252,7 +252,7 @@ Paolo Bonzini               bonzini@gnu.org
 Patrick Tullmann            tullmann@cs.utah.edu
 Patrick Welche              prlw1@newn.cam.ac.uk
 Paul Berrevoets             paul@swi.com
-Paul D. Smith               ?
+Paul D. Smith               psmith@gnu.org
 Paul Eggert                 eggert@cs.ucla.edu
 Paul Gampe                  paulg@apnic.net
 Paul Jarc                   prj@po.cwru.edu

diff --git a/doc/autoconf.texi b/doc/autoconf.texi
index 95939476a1f17ba5f4bd9ad1839bcaf317d2cbd2..7cee3db83c87d9b867a9829693beea1cbc83d218 100644 (file)
--- a/doc/autoconf.texi
+++ b/doc/autoconf.texi
@@ -678,6 +678,23 @@ reason, it needs to be changed in only one place; all of the
 configuration scripts can be regenerated automatically to take advantage
 of the updated code.
 
+Those who do not understand Autoconf are doomed to reinvent it.  The
+primary goal of Autoconf is making the @emph{user's} life easier; making
+the @emph{maintainer's} life easier is only a secondary goal.  Put
+another way, the primary goal is not to make the generation of
+@file{configure} automatic for package maintainers (although patches
+along that front are welcome, since package maintainers form the user
+base of Autoconf); rather, the goal is to make @file{configure}
+painless, portable, and predictable for the end user of each
+@dfn{autoconfiscated} package.  And to this degree, Autoconf is highly
+successful at its goal --- most complaints to the Autoconf list are
+about difficulties in writing Autoconf input, and not in the behavior of
+the resulting @file{configure}.  Even packages that don't use Autoconf
+will generally provide a @file{configure} script, and the most common
+complaint about these alternative home-grown scripts is that they fail
+to meet one or more of the @acronym{GNU} Coding Standards that users
+have come to expect from Autoconf-generated @file{configure} scripts.
+
 The Metaconfig package is similar in purpose to Autoconf, but the
 scripts it produces require manual user intervention, which is quite
 inconvenient when configuring large source trees.  Unlike Metaconfig