autoconf: Leviticus

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1 21.3 Leviticus
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1 
1 Since my `configure' scripts determine the system's capabilities
1 automatically, with no interactive user intervention, I decided to call
1 the program that generates them Autoconfig.  But with a version number
1 tacked on, that name would be too long for old Unix file systems, so I
1 shortened it to Autoconf.
1 
1    In the fall of 1991 I called together a group of fellow questers
1 after the Holy Grail of portability (er, that is, alpha testers) to
1 give me feedback as I encapsulated pieces of my handwritten scripts in
1 M4 macros and continued to add features and improve the techniques used
1 in the checks.  Prominent among the testers were Franc,ois Pinard, who
1 came up with the idea of making an Autoconf shell script to run M4 and
1 check for unresolved macro calls; Richard Pixley, who suggested running
1 the compiler instead of searching the file system to find include files
1 and symbols, for more accurate results; Karl Berry, who got Autoconf to
1 configure TeX and added the macro index to the documentation; and Ian
1 Lance Taylor, who added support for creating a C header file as an
1 alternative to putting `-D' options in a makefile, so he could use
1 Autoconf for his UUCP package.  The alpha testers cheerfully adjusted
1 their files again and again as the names and calling conventions of the
1 Autoconf macros changed from release to release.  They all contributed
1 many specific checks, great ideas, and bug fixes.
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