Re: 01-as-require-shell-fn.patch

[Akim Demaille]

 > The problem with the "Present but cannot be compiled" spy was twofold.
 > First, the spy should have told people to tell the maintainers and
 > *CC* the autoconf mailing list.

It was not clear at that time.  Some people were claiming there should
be no warning at all.  I resisted to that idea, and *I* needed to
know.  That's why the middle position between "do nothing" and "learn
something" ended into "send to autoconf".  If we had known at that
time that _indeed_ the change was not innocent, then, of course, we
would have made it differently.


 >> I'd prefer to have Autotest use shell functions extensively,

 > Any ideas?  I did some work on Autotest last May and I do not have a
 > clue about how to use shell functions there.  Autoconf has very clear
 > duplication problems that are less pressing in Autotest.  (Though
 > Derek may have some ideas).

There is plenty of duplicate code, even worse than in Autoconf.

 > Also, Autotest does convoluted stuff with subshells that make it much
 > harder to use shell functions (and requires more cooperation from the
 > shell than Autoconf will probably ever need).  And finally, we don't
 > have an Autotest test suite which makes testing harder than for
 > Autoconf.

:)