title: How to learn to use autotools/libtool? (Does anybody dislike it too?)
body: <p>When some project is having all that "ltmain", "aclocal.m4" and other "autogen.sh" it brings discomfort:</p>
  
  <ol>
  <li><code>./autogen.sh</code> is slow. <code>./configure</code> is slow.</li>
  <li><code>./configure</code> fails complaining missing somewthing. I fix it and it complains about something next. <a href="https://superuser.com/questions/201585/speeding-up-configure-script-restarts-when-it-fails">Slow</a>.</li>
  <li>Makefiles are BIG. configure script is BIG. Even <code>configure.ac</code> is usually big and incomprehensible.</li>
  <li>Makefile.am and configure.ac is full of mostly mysterious variables. How it deduces rules?</li>
  <li>I <em>suddenly</em> realize that I copied only libtool's shell script stub and actual binary is in <code>.deps</code> or <code>.libs</code> or whatever.</li>
  <li>In general if something is broken there I feel unsure what to do and error messages are usually confusing.</li>
  <li>Finally, even small project is at least 50kb in archive when it have autotool's configure script (when the source code can be 5kb in archive).</li>
  </ol>
  
  <p>Every problem with it adds more and more hate points to {auto,lib}tool.</p>
  
  <p>How to get on well with that things? Is there a short tutorial (not longish "introduction to GNU Build System" or how is it called) plus comprehensive reference how to create, fix and debug that things?</p>