Re:Introduction to the Autotools (2012)
by GFK_of_xmaspast on Sunday January 31, 2016 @02:20PM
(#11007570)
> Autotools solves the problem of being portable to every conceivable Unix, including many Unices people don't use anymore, and including Unixified Windows.
"Portable to ultrix and dg/ux" is not much of a selling point.
That sounds like what I said--portability to every conceivable unix, including ones that people no longer use--that autotools is good for legacy support.
I'm trying to see what benefit there it to start a project in 2016 and wrestle with autotools, just so that you also gain access to unixes no one uses.
That's the thing, if (a specific distribution of) Linux and Windows are all you care about, then CMake does the job just fine. Autotools solves the problem of being portable to every conceivable Unix, including many Unices people don't use anymore, and including Unixified Windows.
Also, autotools solves the problem in a very specific way, test for features, not for versions:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10752054