On 10/12/2012 19:59, Aleksej Saushev wrote:
John Marino<netbsd%marino.st@localhost> writes:Okay, let me get this straight. This Werror was set FOR YEARS and didn't come up with any problems on existing compilers. You seem to be saying that by turning it off now, suddenly new problems will magically appear that affects all these GCC 3.0 - 4.4 systems fatally (or insidiously).Yes, these are new problems, and they must be attributed to compilers. Yes, it is possible for them to affect all systems fatally, even those using older compilers.
I'm am trying to understand your point of view, but I just can't buy this. Code is code, and it's constant. Any problems it has, it always had. The dynamic component is what Werror checks. It adds more and more checks, so an existing "problem" might get revealed years later with a newer compiler. To call some of these problems is a misnomer, they are simply, "Hey, something may be amiss which may be caused by a logic bug". These are development error warnings, not release warnings.
Something that passed contemporary checks for years is not considered broken just because a new compiler generates a "hey look at this" warning. The job to find bugs in the software is upstream. It's not pkgsrc's job to flush them out. It happens as a side effect.
"-Werror" didn't appear out of blue, there're reasons why the flag exists at all. Same reasons apply to existence of compiler warnings. It is possible not to include any diagnostics into compiler. I wonder why people care of those pesky warning messages and their clarity at all. Just imagine how life would be easier if all package would build! It doesn't matter that some of them wouldn't run because they can't find needed library or they don't contain all files they need. All of them would build instead!
Right. Once the developer is certain his product is release quality, he can turn off all the warning switches. That's why you have development settings and release settings. Werror is a development setting.
Are you in favor of grepping all makefiles and patches to see what packages are removing -Werror and reworking them? Because that is the logical conclusion to your stance.Yes, exactly. Packages should build with -Werror set, if they supported it. Those that don't build should be fixed rather than their problems swept under the rug. Removing -Werror may only be a temporary measure, a hack, it is not a solution in any case.
Well, if you feel SO strongly about it, I suppose you can disable BUILDLINK_TRANSFORM when it tries to remove -Werror and see how many packages break on the next bulkbuild and fix all of them. Likely patches are removing it too, but it all seems like a giant waste of time to me. Others have the exact opposite opinion of yours regarding the use of Werror, so how can this be reconciled?