Why do not you utilize GNU SCONS or autoconf for building

Question

Why do not you utilize GNU SCONS or autoconf for building?

Answer 1

The short answer is that when you get this from CCP4, this does. If you determine it from me it doesn't, since autoconf is unreasonably complex and I have better options to fill my head along with.

The long answer is that while Paul (who is an autoconf guru) and I set up autoconf for clipper this took us a week, and needed sufficient specialist knowledge which I couldn't really maintain this. By contrast, while I set it up with SCONS, this took me less than a day and was easily maintainable; though at that stage SCONS didn't handle other platforms very well. Therefore, I distribute development versions of clipper along with simple build scripts which in fact work for me, CCP4 distribute release versions along with autoconf since they have enough experience to keep it, and PHENIX distribute this with SCONS since that's what they use. When you want an autoconf version, use the CCP4 release (granted it’s all the time a bit out of date).