Re: Moving diversions into M4sugar

[Akim Demaille]

>>>>> "Alexandre" == Alexandre Oliva <address@hidden> writes:

>> We're talking about the same thing then :)

Alexandre> Ok, then.  But I'd still like to keep AC_DIVERT,
Alexandre> AC_DIVERT_PUSH and _POP as aliases.  

AC_DIVERT did not exist in 2.13.


Here is my personal opinion about M4sugar, M4sh and Autoconf.  I'd
like to keep the layers distinct, and import as few as possible from
the base layers.  This means that I was very happy to eradicate
AC_DIAGNOSE from Autoconf (which I still have to propagate in the doc
btw) in favor of m4_warn.

My main motivations are:

- the name helps a lot
  How many times did you see people using AC_MSG_ERROR instead of
  AC_FATAL?  Well, I saw it several times, and actually even Autoconf
  itself had such a wrong use of AC_MSG_ERROR for a long time.
  Now that you have a layer which is totally independent from sh, you
  can no longer be wrong: m4_warn is not AC_WARN (which, for
  historical reasons is now AC_MSG_WARN).

- less to learn
  You don't have to learn the M4sugar API and then the same API but
  with s/m4_/AS_/ and s/m4_/AC_/.  It is very important to my eyes
  that programming using a base layer does not change because of the
  top layer.  It makes it easier to read, and even to write (less
  ambiguity on which version of the macro name you should use).
 
So really, personally, I perfectly understand reimporting things like
AC_DIVERT_PUSH since it's been used by other people, but I'm in favor
of 1. limiting importation to the public/used macros, 2. converting
Autoconf internals to the *new* names.