I guess the argument is that on occasion in the future a certain number of people will misinterpret the meaning of PETSC_ARCH frustrating them and us; the number misinterpreting PETSC_CONF will be much smaller or zero saving people's time and energy.
Barry On Nov 30, 2009, at 3:25 PM, Matthew Knepley wrote: > I see the point, but this is one of the oldest parts of PETSc, and I > am hesitant to change one > arbitrary name to another without a more convincing reason. > > Matt > > On Mon, Nov 30, 2009 at 2:17 PM, Barry Smith <bsmith at mcs.anl.gov> > wrote: > > Lisandro has pointed out to me several times that the variable > name PETSC_ARCH can be confusing; some people may think it is > related to the architecture of the machine and don't understand that > it is an arbitrary name that the user can make up. He suggested > changing it to PETSC_CONF to be clearer. > > Should we change it? Use something else? > > Barry > > > > > -- > What most experimenters take for granted before they begin their > experiments is infinitely more interesting than any results to which > their experiments lead. > -- Norbert Wiener