>  From: Jacob Levy [mailto:jyl@[...].net]
	...
>  Whats the motivation (other than "it's happening") for moving Tcl 8.5 to
>  autoconf 2.5x? What actual need (that cannot be met with autoconf 2.1x) is
>  being addressed here?

No modern distros come with autoconf-2.13 installed, and they almost
all come with 2.5x.  The changes required are minor, but they are
*required* (AC_LIBOBJ).  It does have some other benefits that may
make for cleaner m4 stuff should someone want to go through it.

>  For the larger move away from autoconf altogether, you might want to
>  consult with authors of packages that are not pure extensions, e.g.
>  Metakit, which provide a Tcl "binding" to their core functionality.

Bzzzt!  (Sorry JCW, but ...) the metakit build stuff is a PITA.  It's
use of libtool is much more problematic than Tcl's autoconf.  libtool
is a tool of the devil, whereas autoconf is just a mean imp.  JCW
needs it though since he's not creating just a Tcl extension.

>  These
>  packages can not move away from using autoconf, and they cannot rely on
>  Tcl to be installed (or require it) for the replacement functionality.

Then they continue to use what they have now.

>  If
>  Tcl moves away from using autoconf, any solution that is dreamed up would

I never said anything about moving Tcl itself away from autoconf ...
please no starting FUD.  This is only about extensions - and only
about a specific class of extensions.

Jeff

>  be much more useful and usable if it worked in the context of other
>  packages that continue to use autoconf. I think that means continuing to
>  support tclConfig.sh and tcl.m4 at the very least.
> 
>  --JYL
> 
>  > Following the move of the Tcl head (8.5) to require autoconf 2.5x, I
>  > think it is time to do the same for TEA (the sampleextension, and those
>  > extensions that are derived from it - which is most of what you see in
>  > ActiveTcl).
>  >
>  > This will only affect developers who have to modify tclconfig/tcl.m4 or
>  > their configure.in files, which should be few (I think I do most of
>  > those changes).
>  >
>  > In all these changes I have learned to hate autoconf in new ways, and I
>  > think it is high time that we extended TEA with the creation of a Tcl
>  > script that can build extensions (anything pure Tcl, and possibly
>  > simpler C-based ones) without any need for autoconf.  What will assist
>  > us in this is the new config info in Tcl 8.5, which means that this may
>  > be something to look forward to, but may not be usable with 8.4 or
>  > earlier.  I know that Donal has toyed with teapot.tcl, and this would be
>  >  something along those lines (an assumption that you have Tcl - and Tk
>  > for Tk-based extensions - installed when creating these).
>  >
>  > The advantage that TEA has is that you can build extensions with
>  > completely different compiler setups than the core used (this is
>  > something that the ActiveTcl build system actually has to take advantage
>  >  of on some more painful unix systems).  Without an immense amount of
>  > work this would be very hard to do at the Tcl script level.
>  >
>  > Comments?



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