Subject: Re: CVS commit: pkgsrc/x11/gtk2-engines
To: James K. Lowden <jklowden@schemamania.org>
From: Greg A. Woods <woods@weird.com>
List: tech-pkg
Date: 01/07/2003 13:01:01
[ On Tuesday, January 7, 2003 at 01:36:56 (-0500), James K. Lowden wrote: ]
> Subject: Re: CVS commit: pkgsrc/x11/gtk2-engines
>
> On Sun, 05 Jan 2003 16:57:06 -0500, Eric Gillespie <epg@pretzelnet.org>
> wrote:
> > (why does
> > pkgsrc have such a bizarre and ancient version of libtool
> > anyway?) 
> 
> Perhaps because libtool lacks:
> 	
> 1.  Design
> 2.  Documentation

You forgot:

  3.  Purpose.

:-)

> which it occasionally overcomes with heroic execution?  Or not.  I've
> never come across anything else so important and so badly conceived. 

Actually I've found libtool to simply be a solution (err, gross hack)
looking for a problem, especially on any unix-like platform, and doubly
so for all platforms using GNU ld.

It's really not that hard to just write proper per-platform makefile
fragments that can be included in the main project makefiles to handle
shared libraries.

> Upgrading it is a guaranteed crapshoot.  

Usually just eliminating it is easier, but unfortunately it's not the
politically correct thing to do.

-- 
								Greg A. Woods

+1 416 218-0098;            <g.a.woods@ieee.org>;           <woods@robohack.ca>
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