From: Paul Eggert <eggert@cs.ucla.edu>
To: rms@gnu.org
Cc: eliz@gnu.org, ulm@gentoo.org, emacs-devel@gnu.org
Subject: Re: Merging bignum to master
Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2018 18:41:16 -0700 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <03f39b77-dc7a-5e52-69f1-a78efb3060f0@cs.ucla.edu> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <E1fpMIp-0003m9-JR@fencepost.gnu.org>
Richard Stallman wrote:
> > That being said, the distinction between --with-FOO and --enable-FOO has long
> > been a confusing area of the GNU coding standards -- as witnessed by the other
> > packages you're thinking about.
>
> Is that because some cases have been handled erroneously? Or is it
> because some cases don't really fit into either --with or --enable?
In some cases it's erroneous coding. But more often, I think, it's because the
two names are both plausible and developers and users are easily confused about
which names to use.
For example, coreutils ./configure has a --with-gmp option, which causes two
things to happen: first, 'expr' and 'factor' link to the GMP library (which is
appropriate for --with-FOO) and second, these two programs support the feature
of arbitrary-length integers (which is appropriate for --enable-FOO).
Strictly speaking, I supose the GNU Coding Standards require Coreutils to have
both a --with-gmp option (to control whether the GMP library is used) and an
--enable-bignum option (to control whether bignums are supported). But that
would be more confusing than what Coreutils has now, which is a single option
that controls both things, and which is more natural since the only reason you'd
want to link to GMP is to have bignums, and if you want bignums with Coreutils
the only way to get them is to link to GMP.
> If the latter, I think we need to take the bull by the horns
> and work out a good way to handle those cases, rather than forcing them
> into one of two slots which they do not fit.
I hope that we needn't make the coding standards even more complicated than they
already are in this area. When complexity causes confusion, adding more
complexity is likely to cause more confusion.
I'd be more inclined to go in the direction Tom Tromey suggested, which is to no
longer require a sharp distinction between --with-FOO and --enable-FOO since the
distinction's confusion is more trouble than it's worth.
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2018-08-14 1:41 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 58+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2018-08-11 19:47 Merging bignum to master Tom Tromey
2018-08-11 21:28 ` Basil L. Contovounesios
2018-08-12 16:34 ` Tom Tromey
2018-08-13 12:21 ` Basil L. Contovounesios
2018-08-14 0:21 ` Andy Moreton
2018-08-15 23:41 ` Andy Moreton
2018-08-16 15:38 ` Basil L. Contovounesios
2018-08-19 8:26 ` Paul Eggert
2018-08-17 14:58 ` Eli Zaretskii
2018-08-12 6:29 ` Ulrich Mueller
2018-08-12 8:09 ` Paul Eggert
2018-08-12 17:21 ` Ulrich Mueller
2018-08-12 18:20 ` Eli Zaretskii
2018-08-12 19:30 ` Ulrich Mueller
2018-08-13 0:15 ` Paul Eggert
2018-08-12 18:05 ` Eli Zaretskii
2018-08-12 23:53 ` Paul Eggert
2018-08-13 0:20 ` Tom Tromey
2018-08-13 7:51 ` Andreas Schwab
2018-08-13 8:06 ` Ulrich Mueller
2018-08-13 9:14 ` Paul Eggert
2018-08-14 23:09 ` Paul Eggert
2018-08-16 2:46 ` Richard Stallman
2018-08-13 23:31 ` Richard Stallman
2018-08-14 1:41 ` Paul Eggert [this message]
2018-08-16 2:41 ` Richard Stallman
2018-08-16 19:31 ` Paul Eggert
2018-08-16 22:02 ` Stefan Monnier
2018-08-12 7:37 ` John Wiegley
2018-08-12 18:21 ` Eli Zaretskii
2018-08-12 11:48 ` Pip Cet
2018-08-12 16:02 ` Tom Tromey
2018-08-13 22:58 ` Paul Eggert
2018-08-14 1:12 ` Noam Postavsky
2018-08-14 13:04 ` Pip Cet
2018-08-14 18:01 ` Paul Eggert
2018-08-15 15:20 ` Pip Cet
2018-08-15 16:17 ` Paul Eggert
2018-08-15 23:57 ` Andy Moreton
2018-08-16 22:00 ` Stefan Monnier
2018-08-20 16:28 ` Some vars now limited to fixnum size. (Was: Merging bignum to master) Karl Fogel
2018-08-20 16:54 ` Paul Eggert
2018-08-20 17:27 ` Eli Zaretskii
2018-08-20 17:27 ` Paul Eggert
2018-08-20 18:00 ` Eli Zaretskii
2018-08-20 19:55 ` Pip Cet
2018-08-20 23:15 ` Paul Eggert
2018-08-21 15:01 ` Some vars now limited to fixnum size Tom Tromey
2018-08-21 16:36 ` Andy Moreton
2018-08-21 18:46 ` Paul Eggert
2018-08-22 15:39 ` Tom Tromey
2018-08-21 3:38 ` Some vars now limited to fixnum size. (Was: Merging bignum to master) Richard Stallman
2018-08-21 4:09 ` Paul Eggert
2018-08-22 4:03 ` Richard Stallman
2018-08-22 4:53 ` Paul Eggert
2018-08-20 17:25 ` Eli Zaretskii
2018-08-14 0:51 ` Merging bignum to master Andy Moreton
2018-08-15 15:46 ` Andy Moreton
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