Re: [Groff] Mission statement

[Colin Watson]

On Fri, Mar 14, 2014 at 11:26:46PM -0400, Eric S. Raymond wrote:
> Peter Schaffter <address@hidden>:
> > The build system
> > 
> > - streamline the build system to improve flexibility and portability
> 
> Nothing you can ever do with autotools will ever be describable as 
> 'streamlining'.  It's a horrible, bloated, crufty mess that leads to
> horrible, bloated, crufty builds.
> 
> If I were running the project I would toss out autotools in a heartbeat
> and replace it with something cleaner and more modern.  My top choice
> would be scons.

scons is closer to a construction kit for build systems than a build
system, which makes it a pain to work with in any regular way from a
packaging perspective.  In particular I've never seen a scons-using
project that has managed to get cross-building working right; whereas
groff cross-compiles relatively easily out of the box today (you just
have to do a separate native build pass so that it can build its own
documentation).  I'd hate to see groff switching to something
significantly less battle-hardened.

-- 
Colin Watson                                       address@hidden