Path: csiph.com!x330-a1.tempe.blueboxinc.net!usenet.pasdenom.info!news.albasani.net!eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Joshua Cranmer Newsgroups: comp.lang.java.programmer Subject: Re: =?UTF-8?B?QW5kcm9pZOKAlFdoeSBEYWx2aWs/?= Date: Tue, 31 May 2011 11:10:32 -0400 Organization: A noiseless patient Spider Lines: 18 Message-ID: References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Injection-Date: Tue, 31 May 2011 15:10:32 +0000 (UTC) Injection-Info: mx04.eternal-september.org; posting-host="bAymlyY9SkaJNa8Tz2rerw"; logging-data="5621"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX186tRetjKl9nwgXcFC3QF4o54iiybWRqhs=" User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9.2.16pre) Gecko/20110305 Lightning/1.0b3pre Thunderbird/3.1.10pre In-Reply-To: Cancel-Lock: sha1:QZ9LDTTEAcMb/OSaO0UUfP7YMeo= Xref: x330-a1.tempe.blueboxinc.net comp.lang.java.programmer:4798 On 05/30/2011 09:56 PM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote: > In message, Nasser M. Abbasi wrote: > >> Just understanding the makefiles, never mind the 2 million >> lines or so source code with the #ifdefs in them, was a >> nightmare :) > > Didn’t you have GNU autoconf to deal with all of that for you? Understanding GNU autoconf is half the battle. It's written in a macro language no one really understands, so half the code is copy-pasted. Besides, all autoconf gets you is setting up the hundreds of #defines. It does nothing else with respect to the #ifdef mess. -- Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it. -- Donald E. Knuth