Re: [HACKERS] Autoconf versions

On Mon, 15 Mar 1999, Tom Lane wrote:

> The Hermit Hacker <scrappy(at)hub(dot)org> writes:
> > Well, you've totally lost me here, on what exactly the problem
> > is...especially with you last statement. If there is a problem with
> > various users using 2.13 vs 2.12, how is that fixed by removing configure
> > from CVS and relying on ppl having autoconf installed?
>
> Well, it wouldn't do much to help in debugging configure failures,
> true. (But at least we'd be able to ask "what autoconf version have you
> got?" and expect a useful answer --- right now, if someone reports a
> configure failure and doesn't say exactly when he last updated, we
> might have a dickens of a time figuring out whether he had a 2.12 or
> 2.13 script. If he does another update, the evidence would be gone.)
>
> Mostly I just want to cut down the overhead of massive diffs in the
> configure script and ensure that we know which version of autoconf
> will be in the release.
>
> > What sort of problems are you noticing?
>
> I have not observed any problems --- yet. But considering the length
> of time between 2.12 and 2.13, I assume there are some significant
> differences in their behavior ;-). We should make sure we have the
> right version in place for our 6.5 release.
>
> > I'm running 2.13 at home and 2.12 on hub, so I interchangeably commit
> > depending on the machine I'm on
>
> I've been using autoconf for a long time, and I've never yet seen two
> releases that could safely be treated as interchangeable.

Well, I've been using autoconf since...since we moved everything over to
it, what, two years ago? I have yet to see a problem using one version
over the next. If you can show a problem, please feel free to point it
out, but until we can do that, requiring 2.12 or 2.13 explicitly, IMHO, is
ridiculous. flex 2.54+ made sense, because of an acknowledged
problem...autoconf versions, though, there are no acknowledged problems
between each that I'm aware of...

Marc G. Fournier
Systems Administrator @ hub.org
primary: scrappy(at)hub(dot)org secondary: scrappy(at){freebsd|postgresql}.org