I don't get it.

autoconf is supposed to make platform incompatibilities go away (well, at least on Unix-ish systems). That is, if a program uses autoconf to build itself, I should never have to hand-edit a file, nor should I see crap like:

In file included from ../../boost/boost/format.hpp:55,
                 from ../../src/BoostFormat.h:9,
                 from formulamacro.C:43:
../../boost/boost/format/parsing.hpp: In member function `void 
   boost::basic_format::parse(const std::basic_string   std::allocator<_CharT> >&)':
../../boost/boost/format/parsing.hpp:359: use of `string' is ambiguous
../../src/LString.h:35:   first declared as `typedef class lyxstring string' 
   here
/opt/tools/gcc-3.2.1/include/c++/3.2.1/bits/stringfwd.h:60:   also declared as 
   `typedef struct std::basic_string, 
   std::allocator > std::string' here

Why must software suck so badly?