Re: [FYI] Cleanup of linux pass_all

[Bob Friesenhahn]

On Wed, 15 Sep 2004, Howard Chu wrote:

> Alexandre Oliva wrote:
>
> > > if there was only a good way to test for PIC ....
>
> > The only reasonable way I can think of is to get the linker to try and
> > link stuff.  If it fails, we print a warning message and proceed to
> > building a static-only version of the library.  And let's just hope
> > modern linkers won't silently create corrupt binaries.
>
> This makes the most sense I've heard so far. libtool does far too much work 
> to try and protect programmers from their mistakes, which consequently makes 
> libtool big and clunky and (IMO) just annoys the programmers. I would like to

You are getting something wrong.  Libtool helps protect users from 
programmers who make mistakes.  Programmers make lots of mistakes, 
particularly if they only develop and test on one platform.  The 
primary users of libtool *are not programmers*.  They are just people 
who want to install a software package which happens to use libtool.

The scenario is as follows:

 1) User attempts to build but the build fails or the software
    misbehaves after it is installed.

 2) User blames package developer.

 3) Package developer blames libtool and libtool maintainers.

Therefore libtool is obligated to work hard to try to protect 
programmers from their mistakes.

Bob
======================================
Bob Friesenhahn
address@hidden
http://www.simplesystems.org/users/bfriesen