Re: GNUstep.sh / env sanity patches

[John Davidorff Pell]

On 18 Aug 2004, at 03:43, Nicola Pero wrote:
> GNUstep1 and one inside GNUstep2.  GNUstep.sh will load the paths from
> GNUsteprc instead of having them hardcoded into GNustep.sh itself.
> GNustep.sh will look for a local GNUsteprc before the system /etc one.
> When you install gnustep-make it will only install a single GNusteprc
> either in /etc or in the local GNUstep installation dir.  That's all an
> implementation detail though.  It will set the env variable needed by
> gnustep-base to detect the GNUsteprc located in the non-standard 
> location.
> It will set the GNUSTEP_MAKEFILES variable which is the only variable
> needed to execute the makefiles if you are compiling.  It will also set
> PATH, LD_LIBRARY_PATH, CLASSPATH, etc.
>
> But how that works is quite an implementation detail -- why do you care
> how it works internally?

The more complex it is internally, the more bugs it has, the more 
likely it is to get in my way... this is a dev discussion isn't it? ;-) 
I think that we're moving away from the philosophy that made OpenStep 
great, into something akin to GNOME (i.e. a toolkit, not an 
environment).

> > Actually, i would expect that installation one should have hard coded
> > into it where it lives, since it cannot be easily relocated anyway.
>
> Sure.  That 's exactly wht the GNUsteprc installed inside installation 
> 1
> will do -- hardcode the paths of where everything is.
>
> The reason GNusteprc is nice is that the paths are hardcoded, but in a
> text-editable file with a trivial format, so you can actually change 
> them
> if you know what you are doing :-), or you can just look at them to see
> what the filesystem layout is ... since we'll be supporting stuff like
> installing libraries into /usr/lib for the people who need that, it 
> might
> be useful to be able to look at the hardcoded paths; if they are 
> hardcoded
> into the object files it would be a lot more difficult to view them and
> edit them.

I cannot see one single reason that installation of GNUstep libs into 
/usr/lib would be a good thing, or even desirable in any way. Unless I 
am missing something very big here, it looks like the only people who 
want this are people who are fundamentally opposed to some of the basic 
ideas of OpenStep/GNUstep.

I think that the location should be either hard-coded in, or should be 
path relative. something in $GNUSTEP_SYSTEM_ROOT/Tools should link to, 
literally, "../Library/Libraries/libgnustep_base.so" or whatever. Being 
path relative would make relocatable installs simpler.

> > For developers, there would continue to need to be a GNUstep{rc,.sh}
> > script to source
>
> That I'd really like to prevent though.
>
> GNUSTEP_MAKEFILES=/opt/GNustep/System/Library/Makefile/

You are correct, this should be the only var needed (except for 
non-flat, etc).

> Anyway I imagine nobody really cares about all those details (except 
> for
> the conclusion, which is that it can be made to work), sorry for the 
> long
> paragraph, thanks for your comments.

I think you have the wrong idea that nobody cares about the details. I 
care :-D

JP

--
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-- Robert J Woodhead

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