A simpler way to configure the source code?

The other day, I did a test build of "everything", which involved
specifying 17 command-line arguments to configure.  This is probably the
reason why some fringe features are not tested very often: the list of
options is pretty overwhelming.

I remembered that in the old days PHP had an interactive setup script,
that asked you mainly yes/no questions about each feature you wanted, and
would run "configure" based on the answers it got.  This sort of thing
might help our situation, because instead of having to specify all the
options, users can just keep pressing Y all the time.  Of course it could
also be considered as a general improvement in user-friendliness.

Now I just realized that the latest PHP source code doesn't have this
thing anymore, so maybe they didn't like it?  What do you think?

As far as maintaining something like this goes, I think I have an idea
that would basically require zero effort, so at least that shouldn't be
too much of a concern.

-- 
Peter Eisentraut   peter_e@gmx.net