Re: [ANNOUNCE] Lua 4.1 (work4)

[Reuben Thomas <rrt@...>]

> > Lua is 100% ANSI C. You only need an ANSI C compiler to build it.
> > There's no need for Autoconf because it does not depend on the OS.
>
> Just because Lua is 100% ANSI C does not imply its build process is
> does not depend on the OS.  This is the reason you have a config file.

To be precise, it depends on the environment (build tools &c.), not so
much the OS (the one or two non-ANSI functions).

The fact that it's very nearly 100% ANSI does mean that one should look
with suspicion on using a definitely non-portable tool like autoconf (make
is not much better, admittedly).

To my mind, an autoconf script is something that should go in a "Lua
distribution" of the sort I've been discussing recently, rather than
vanilla Lua.

Talking about "embracing open source standards" is missing the point: it's
open source, they're giving it away, they can do what they like. Not using
autoconf does not make the Lua team even quixotic, let alone bad. Other
programs with similar goals don't use autoconf, e.g. bzip2, which
nonetheless is widely used in open source-based systems.

-- 
http://sc3d.org/rrt/ | competent, a.  underpromoted