> scripts and autoconf and all that stringly-typed pipe stuff, ended up becoming (IMHO) the most reusable, pluggable programming environment yet devised...

I mean yes, but also only because the rest of computing is stuck in the same era. Meanwhile I'm over here popping nix-shells having my nice exact same nushell on every machine I could possibly want it on.

IMO it's all symptoms of the same problems. Related, I don't know how people start new projects and use autotools. But then again I'd say the same about cmake. But then again I just yesterday read a nightmare Lobsters comment about the realities of meson at the edges. And then I just sigh, thankful that I'm a Rust hipster (and then deal with cmake at the edges all the same). Computers are fun!