Re: CHECK_STRUCTS/dmpstruct.h mechanism is broken.

[Paul Eggert]

On 4/11/19 3:10 PM, Daniel Colascione wrote:
> I've also
> found that alternative systems frequently have problems with complex
> configurations like out-of-tree builds, cross compilation, various forms
> of path overriding, and tool specification. autoconf dealt with all of
> these issues a very long time ago.

Yes, we want to continue to support the things you mention (except Emacs
has never supported cross-compilation as far as I know).

> 1) eliminating tests that have become unnecessary in the modern world,

This would be nice, but will be tricky to do in Autoconf because many of
these tests are baked into Autoconf. I'm not saying it can't be done,
but at some point it may be better simply to dump Autoconf.

> 2) adding an optimization pass that batched redundant tests

Not sure what you mean by this.

> 3) making caching Just Work, maybe by stracing and checking all inputs for
> cache validation.
I have my doubts about this. For one thing, we can't assume strace.
Also, stracing is slow.