Re: [RFC PATCH 0/2] Additional AC_INIT/AC_OUTPUT-related diagnostics

[David A. Wheeler]

On August 14, 2020 2:44:20 PM EDT, Zack Weinberg <zackw@panix.com> wrote:
>In Savannah bug #107986, David Wheeler contributed some additional
>diagnostics for misuse of AC_INIT.  I sat down to review them late
>last week and wound up making so many changes and enhancements that
>this is effectively a rewrite from scratch.  (I would like to
>apologize to David for making him go through the copyright assignment
>process and then not actually using any of his code.)

Don't feel bad, it's okay.

In my mind, the bigger issue is beginning the process of adding warnings about 
various likely or hard-to-debug problems. Most people who use the autotools 
primarily do something else, so it's easy to make errors that are hard to 
figure out or even notice.

If the tools were released more often, at least annually, then there wouldn't 
be as much pressure to get everything in one release. :-). But I bet everyone 
already knows that :-).

--- David A.Wheeler