Automatic src.tgz -> deb tool?

[John McCabe-Dansted]

Hi, is there a tool to automatically convert a standard libtool based
source tarball into a deb file?

Much of the information needed to generate a deb file could be
generated from configure and "make install". E.g. we could run "make
install" under Plash or systrace and capture all the files it tries to
install.

Now I know this can't produce a perfect deb, however it could save
time (time that could be used to polish the deb) and also I imagine
that debs generated by humans with access to the rigid logic of a
automated translator as well as their own wisdom would be better than
debs generated solely by human wisdom alone.

  "The human should always win and here is why.

   First the human writes the whole thing in a high level language.
   Second he profiles it to find the hot spots where it spends its time.
   Third he has the compiler produce assembly for those small sections of code.
   Fourth he hand tunes them looking for tiny improvements over the
machine generated code.

   The human wins because he can use the machine" -- Charles Fiterman

-- 
John C. McCabe-Dansted
PhD Student
University of Western Australia