Re: config info

From: Ian T Zimmerman (itz@transbay.net)
Date: Fri Mar 19 1999 - 05:04:22 MET


To: gurr@mrs.med.ge.com (David Gurr)
Subject: Re: config info
From: Ian T Zimmerman <itz@transbay.net>
Date: 18 Mar 1999 20:04:22 -0800
In-Reply-To: gurr@mrs.med.ge.com's message of Tue, 16 Mar 1999 09:24:36 -0800

gurr@mrs.med.ge.com (David Gurr) writes:

> Hi, The installation of ocaml based applications might be
> simplified if the standard "make install" copied the config lib and
> the config/Makefile to the library location. Or if this is messy,
> how about a "make install-devel" that does the copying? Thanks for
> considering this detail.

Tcl/Tk does this, and I absolutely hate it. First of all, the config
file is text, and in GNU-like environments it should go under the
share tree, not under lib. Second, and more important, it limits
flexibility in the derived installations. This is partly a
"philosophical" issue (see the last sentence of this message), but
also a practical one: any bug in the original build is automatically
propagated to the dependent ones. (With Tcl, this surfaced in the
naming of shared libraries).

Some prefer life simplified; others prefer to keep control of it.

-- 
Ian T Zimmerman                        <itz@transbay.net>
I came to the conclusion that what was wrong about the guillotine
was that the condemned man had no chance at all, absolutely none.
Albert Camus, _The Outsider_



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