Windowed Libtools

[Bruce Korb]

> > "Wont be able to develop ... libtool *ON WINDOWS* any more."
> 
> So you're agreeing that the generated ltmain.in must support
> Cygwin at least as well as the current release?

Of course.

> (wait a minute, thats not exactly what I 
> meant, since the Cygwin port is broken at the moment :-/)

"at least" means it may be better :-)

Please note:  there are several issues being conflated into
one thread.

1.  Will libtool run on Windows?  Emphatically, as well as it
    does now.  Nothing will happen that will break that.

2.  Can you do development for the libtool project under Windows?
    It depends.  :-)

Assuming that rumors are true that it is possible to get a
minimal Guile running on windows, then you can.  We have to
avoid using features in our code that are not available on
WinNT.  (Forget Win3.1 or DOS.  No way, no how.)  These
features would be shell commands that do not exist and Guile
functions that do not port.  It also includes nested
templates because nested template handling was done in a way
that WinNT can't deal with.  However there is a *very* simple
workaround.  Where you need to use this construct:

  [= ag-macro  mac-arg = "[= nested =] template [= text =]" =]

instead use this:

  [= (out-push-new ".tmp" )  =][=
     nested=] template [=text=][=
     (out-pop)               =][=
     ag-macro mac-arg = `cat .tmp ; rm -f .tmp` =]

Not only does it avoid the WinNT issue, but it avoids all
kinds of complexity in trying to figure out how to scan
nested template markers, and it avoids having to remember
that you are inside of a quoted string while you are writing
the "nested template text" template.  Way more consistent.
Way easier to understand.  It avoids ever having to separate
an opening '[=' from its closing '=]' by more than a few
lines.  It is 60 extra characters worth of typing (or so),
but well worth it!