Re: autoconf's goal [was: just one of a million reasons why autoconf...]

[Stepan Kasal]

Hi all,

On Tue, Mar 18, 2008 at 07:22:01PM -0600, Eric Blake wrote:
> I liked your response so much that I extracted some of the gems of
> wisdom from this thread, and am checking the following into the
> manual.

many thanks to both of you, Paul and Eric.

I searched web for the source of the quotation paraphrased here.
Attached below please find my humble contribution.

OK to commit?

Stepan

diff --git a/doc/autoconf.texi b/doc/autoconf.texi
index 7cee3db..2f3efca 100644
--- a/doc/autoconf.texi
+++ b/doc/autoconf.texi
@@ -678,10 +678,12 @@ 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
address@hidden "Those who do not understand Unix are condemned to reinvent it, 
poorly."
address@hidden --Henry Spencer, 1987 (see 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_philosophy)
+Those who do not understand Autoconf are condemned to reinvent it, poorly.
+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}