Re: AC_MSG_RESULT(patching libtool to fix HIDEOUS BREAKAGE) [was Re:dconf 0.5]

[Krzysztof Kosiński <tweenk pl gmail com>]

2010/8/4 Havoc Pennington <hp pobox com>:
> automake is fine, but libtool is a real problem. It seriously
> lengthens compile/install times in a way that's probably wasted tens
> of thousands of developer hours over the years, *at least*. In all
> honesty, most likely any of us who write a lot of C code could get
> back the time spent patching libtool out of automake *just in time
> saved personally*, let alone time saved for everyone else.

I have used Waf for some time and it changed my opinion about
Autotools and CMake.

Only demigods can really understand the inner workings of Autotools to
the point of being able to meaningfully modify them, and getting it to
work on Windows is an exercise in masochism. CMake's scripting
language is incredibly unexpressive and it takes lots and lots of code
to do anything moderately complicated. Meanwhile Waf is
architecturally quite simple and allows you to write concise scripts
in Python. It's also infinitely faster than SCons.

Of course, it doesn't have all the features required by GNU projects
(for example tarball creation is very limited), but I think it would
be more productive to enhance Waf to the point it's a feasible
Autotools replacement, rather than wasting time on the current
mainstream choices.

Regards, Krzysztof