Request for Feedback: proposed config(8) improvement

[Chris Pressey <cpressey@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

For anyone who's been curious about why I've been cleaning up
config(8)'s source, here is a document that explains (rather poorly I'm
afraid) what I want to do with it.

  http://catseye.webhop.net/DragonFlyBSD/config/background.html

Basically: config(8) shouldn't let you configure a kernel that won't
build.  It should detect that it won't build, tell you why, and stop
immediately without wasting your time with a make session that is doomed
to failure.

I've done some research into how to make this happen.  It's actually
surprisingly complex... but there may be ways to make it simpler, so I'm
happy to receive comments.  Is it a laudable goal?  Is my reasoning
sound about how to get to that goal?  Will I be able to keep using
Perl, or will it disappear from the base system, forcing me to use C?
(NOTE: I do not necessarily think that this would be a *bad* thing ;)
Or any other suggestions?

Thanks,
-Chris