[maemo-developers] [maemo-developers] why autotools?

[From: Nils Faerber]

Asko Kauppi wrote:
> 
> The Maemo system, examples and all, build heavily on use of  autotools. 
> Now, in my opinion the sole use of that toolchain is to  cover multiple
> *nixes in a somewhat controllable fashion.
> 
> The question is: why does a Maemo-only hello world use autotools,  since
> there's clearly no benefit per se from having that "have this  have
> that" analysis done?  Why not just use Makefiles, or better  still,
> something like SCons (www.scons.org) ?

I do not know SCons I have to admit but a reason for autotools is also
that it can check for dependent packages, i.e. if your application
depends on, say, SQLite, it will check for the appropriate version of
the dependency, availability of needed headers, etc...
So quite convenient.
And it can also do decision upon failing tests, if your application
supprts multiple sulutions for one problem, like support for multiple
databases it can automatically choose the preferred on out of all
possible detected choices.

As always, there are more ways leading to success and the road taken
here was autotools... maybe other tools would have served the same goals
in an easier fashion...

> -ak
Cheers
  nils faerber

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