Re: TODO

[Bob Friesenhahn]

On Tue, 16 Nov 2004, Gary V. Vaughan wrote:
> > under Linux, but the authors expect them to be portable because they use 
> > autotools and standard APIs.  It seems that the shortened link line will 
> > allow developers to not list the dependencies which are necessary on some 
> > other platforms.
>
> That's not what I mean at all.  The call to libtool will be exactly the
> same.  Holding up my horrid gdiplus example again, with or without this

[ stuff removed ]

> From the outside, nothing changes.  Except that libtool trusts you
> to have linked your deplibs properly.

I understand that part.

> > The result of this is more applications which don't compile and link 
> > outside of Linux.  There are an abundance of new Linux programmers for 
> > which Linux is the new "Windows" (single operating system mentality) and 
> > have not bought into the open systems concept.  Given that these 
> > programmers don't have experience with any other Unix system, and are 
> > unlikely to test on other systems, it is useful if libtool helps 
> > aid/enforce portability by any means available.
>
> I get the feeling we're talking past each other here a little.  Am I
> missing your point somehow?

Probably you are missing my point.  My point is that it is useful if 
the build fails (or at least warns verbosely) if a dependency has not 
been specified to libtool that should have been.  This ensures that 
the configure script, Makefile.am, and resulting Makefile, will be 
adequately complete because the Linux developer will see a problem. 
Without this, packages will be distributed which do not build on other 
platforms due to missing dependencies.  I have already encountered 
packages (which use libtool) with this problem.

In this case, the dependency specification which lists libraries which 
are picked up automatically is a bit like an ANSI C function 
prototype.

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