Path: utzoo!utstat!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!umich!yale!think!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!apple!oliveb!orc!mipos3!iwarp.intel.com!news From: merlyn@iwarp.intel.com (Randal Schwartz) Newsgroups: news.software.b Subject: [meta]Configure again (was Re: Peter's gripes) Message-ID: <1990Feb5.053532.2286@iwarp.intel.com> Date: 5 Feb 90 05:35:32 GMT References: <519@smcnet.UUCP> <1990Jan30.041541.23578@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov> <572@sci34hub.UUCP> <1990Feb4.222953.19169@utzoo.uucp> Sender: news@iwarp.intel.com Reply-To: merlyn@iwarp.intel.com (Randal Schwartz) Organization: Stonehenge; netaccess via Intel, Beaverton, Oregon, USA Lines: 32 In-Reply-To: henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) In article <1990Feb4.222953.19169@utzoo.uucp>, henry@utzoo (Henry Spencer) writes: | >Maybe some code that would run test compiles to find out if the | >functions are there or not..... with that, build could answer some | >of the questions itself. | It's really hard to do this 100% portably, unfortunately, especially | given the variation in the format of can't-find-this complaints. | (No, going out to the libraries via ar is not the answer -- the libraries | aren't even always in the same places.) Well, why not just steal all the stuff from Larry's Configure and Metaconfigure? The first time I built Cnews (less than a month ago), some of the questions annyoyed me, because when I build Perl and RN on 4 different, it doesn't ask me all those questions (instead, I spend a lot of time just hitting RETURN :-). And RN and Perl have gotten the added benefit of being ported to *many* different architectures, for which the "bugs" in the configuration process have been sorted out and fiddled back into Metaconfigure. (I love the announcement "Congratulations. You aren't running Eunice" at the beginning of Configure for Perl... :-) I know you started out with something else, and you're doing Cnews on a volunteer basis, and I applaud y'all for that. But maybe stealing some of the work of someone else (like Larry) would be the right thing to do here. Just another new news admin (you mean Bnews was *slower*? sheesh!), -- /=Randal L. Schwartz, Stonehenge Consulting Services (503)777-0095 ==========\ | on contract to Intel's iWarp project, Beaverton, Oregon, USA, Sol III | | merlyn@iwarp.intel.com ...!any-MX-mailer-like-uunet!iwarp.intel.com!merlyn | \=Cute Quote: "Welcome to Portland, Oregon, home of the California Raisins!"=/