[pacman-dev] [PATCH] Have configure set pactest options that it knows.

[Jeremy Heiner]

Allan McRae <allan at archlinux.org> wrote:
> What I do not like is that your patch is taking away options.  It would
> have been less work to leave in support for those flags than to remove
> them.

Taking away options is what software engineering is all about. Module.
Class. Encapsulation. API. Any script kiddy can barf up a mess that
can (sorta) get it done. Is that really the direction you want to
steer this project in?

I don't care how much less work it would have been to leave those
unmentionables unmentioned. Burying dirty laundry never results in
clean linen.

> Yes...  lets pretend I have looked at those patches...  :)

That is my whole point! You spent too much time looking at the patches
I submitted. I thought: "obviously he's using the autoconf tools so
this patch won't take up much of his time". But I was apparently
wrong. I apologize. Yet when I suggest using decades-old tools to
alleviate the problem the response is "no thanks." Odd.

> Given we are championing the autotools way, good autoconf macros
> automatically set a value but provide a flag to override it.

Who's this "we"?