Not coming from active c/cpp development, but learned it at University, I had to deal with autotools just last week. I have to admit I was facing a steep learning curve. All I wanted to do is adjusting some build parameters of an existing OS project (like adding compiler flags etc), which has several sub projects and is also calling non cpp-compilers (mono). Normally I'm an extremely fast learner, but this gave me something to chew on a few hours. I was frustrated and gave up when I accomplished 85% of what I originally wanted to achieve (because time didn't permit to spend more on this). I don't mean to say these tools are hard to comprehend/master in general, but for folks like me coming from other software ecosystems it seems it's a tough bit. At least it was for me :)
