On Fri, Mar 21, 2003 at 12:49:56AM +0000, David M. Wilson wrote: > On Thu, Mar 20, 2003 at 10:16:44PM +0000, David Cantrell wrote: > > you how to compile it, but not what it calls the resulting library file, > > where to put it, or where the usual place for its header files is. And > > heaven forbid that you could just make install. > The UW c-client library seems to be maintained by a staunch > traditionalist, it's packaged with compress ffs!
A traditionalist whose idea of programming style is almost as good as djb's. > If I remember correctly, (and bearing the above comment in mind), said > library is designed for static linking, aka: > cc -c -o cclient.o ../cclient/cclient.c > cc -I../cclient -o myprog $(MYPROG_OBJS) cclient.o Yuck. > WOEFULLY incomplete: their way of saying "no, we're not using GNU > f**king autotools, and no, we're not writing a Makefile that will output > shared libraries on every platform." Oh, I dislike autotools, don't get me wrong, but not including information about headers, API and library output *IS* woefully incomplete, by any definition of the word. I know of many packages that *don't* use autotools and still manage to get this kind of simple thing correct. > > Eventually I got fed up with dealing with software packaged by fuckwits, > I think basic C compiler / linker knowledge is an essential part of > system administration, and consider those who lack it to be fuckwits. Oh, absolutely, and I'm also well aware in this case that Dave has them. (bloody hell, I'm standing up for Cantrell, what's wrong with me?). Basic linker knowledge should not extend to "what the **** does this guy think he's doing with this file". If the C is as badly written as Mark Crispin's piece of junk, then you won't have a hope in hell of doing anything with it unless you're an expert programmer. > The same could be said for make, a rather neat and portable way of > keeping files in sync. Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha You are joking, aren't you. Please tell me you are. How many different versions of make do you think exist, with their respective bugs. It is not actually possible to write a portable makefile that has any kind of conditional dependency. At all. > Cursing people more skilled and/or intelligent than yourself is the > easiest thing to do on the planet[0], and just because a package doesn't Mark may be more intelligent than me, I'm not sure if he is or not. However, his coding "style" leaves exceedingly large amounts to be desired. His ability to package software in any kind of sane way appears similar. The UW-IMAP server is a disaster area, and C-Client is a fair approximation at a guide of how *not* to program. > follow the GNU/Linux empire's way of tar.bz2 + 200k of m4 drivel, > doesn't mean it's of poor quality. Nobody said that it needed to have autoconf, and a lot of people don't like it, including myself. It does, however, seem to me that the C-Client code as it stands is indefensible. The build instructions are, as has been said already, woefully inadequate. The tar.bz2 argument is a straw man, in this case, it's mainly about file size, bzip2 is, quite simply, a better compression algorithm than compress. Next you'll be saying that someone using crypt(1) is in the right, because they're a "traditionalist", even though the attacks against it are well known. > [0] I'm guilty of it here -- I guess now that c-client is packaged with > compress for portability. To provide the most hassle for any sysadmin who has to install it. > I was still forming an opinion as I wrote this e-mail, so yes, it does > read a little messed up! :) No, it just reads as if you don't know what you're talking about. -- Lusercop.net - LARTing Lusers everywhere since 2002
