On Feb 8, 2007, at 5:42 AM, Nicola Pero wrote:
Right, and also, frankly, there's a very important non-technical
aspect
to this as well; Way more developers know what the heck .pc files and
pkg-config are, as well as how they work, than a funky GNUstep.conf
file, which, while somewhat self-explanatory, definitely is
proprietary.
pkg-config is commonly used and makes things easier for us.
As we move towards a totally FHS-capable GNUstep, this is something
which should be taken into account, IMHO.
Thanks ... it's certainly an aspect. :-)
There is also another important non-technical aspect, which is the
amount of dependencies
that you have, and the robustness of your GNUstep configuration/
installation process.
If we had gnustep-make depend on pkg-config, then you wouldn't be
able to use GNUstep
unless you installed pkg-config first.
That's not entirely correct. GNUstep can be taught how to read
pkgconfig-format-file, such as GNUstep.pc, thus eliminating the need
for GNUstep.conf entirely, and then pkgconfig is only a dependency
for those who COMPILE or develop apps for GNUstep. Not end users who
will likely be installing via a package in their favorite distribution.
That seems a step backwards to me; adding more dependencies makes
it more difficult
to install things. End users are adversely affected.
I do strongly believe this is an oversimplification. It is illogical
to conclude that more dependencies = automatically a bad thing.
At the moment, gnustep-make depends on nothing, and doesn't even
need building. You
just configure it and install. That's very simple and very
unlikely to break. :-)
That's key. We should keep trying to simplify our configure/build/
install process
so that more people that try to try GNUstep actually manage to try
it ... they are
much more likely to stay. :-)
It depends on what your definition of "simplification" is. Many would
surely view some strange GNUstep.conf file as complex simply because
it's foreign *to them*, while it's not to you because you played a
crucial role in developing said mechanism.
So I don't want to add extra dependencies that provide nothing of
value just because
"way more developers know" about GNOME development tools than about
GNUstep
development tools. And if you go down that route, you'll end up
using glade instead
of Gorm! ;-)
pkgconfig is a Freedesktop component. It is used by Xorg, openssl,
and many, many other projects. It is not simply a part of gnome any
longer. See http://pkgconfig.freedesktop.org/ . As such, I personally
consider this statement to be rhetorical hyperbole, and I'd like to
suggest that perhaps there's a bit of unconscious "Not Invented Here"
syndrome playing a role.
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts,
Alex Perez
_______________________________________________
Gnustep-dev mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnustep-dev
