From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Paul Eggert Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: A better autogen.sh Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2011 13:40:13 -0700 Organization: UCLA Computer Science Department Message-ID: <4D81202D.30804@cs.ucla.edu> References: <87y66fv2d3.fsf@stupidchicken.com> <4D388F7F.20708@swipnet.se> <87r5c7jk5m.fsf@stupidchicken.com> <4D39EF9C.1050804@cs.ucla.edu> <4D3A8666.4070609@cs.ucla.edu> <877hdvd49f.fsf@meyering.net> <83mxmrzhb6.fsf@gnu.org> <4D3C9C5B.8050303@cs.ucla.edu> <4D7FDFB0.6020203@cs.ucla.edu> <4D7FEF16.7040107@cs.ucla.edu> <8362rjr9po.fsf@gnu.org> <4hk4fzsnv8.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org> <4D805B3F.1030900@cs.ucla.edu> <4D807E05.4000600@cs.ucla.edu> <4D80F8F3.8030909@cs.ucla.edu> <83y64eq4ji.fsf@gnu.org> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1300308123 24401 80.91.229.12 (16 Mar 2011 20:42:03 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2011 20:42:03 +0000 (UTC) Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Eli Zaretskii Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Wed Mar 16 21:41:59 2011 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1PzxXY-0002Ko-Kn for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Wed, 16 Mar 2011 21:41:57 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:40085 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1PzxXX-0005d2-VW for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Wed, 16 Mar 2011 16:41:56 -0400 Original-Received: from [140.186.70.92] (port=45282 helo=eggs.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1PzxW0-0004NQ-8k for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 16 Mar 2011 16:40:21 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1PzxVy-00023D-O1 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 16 Mar 2011 16:40:20 -0400 Original-Received: from smtp.cs.ucla.edu ([131.179.128.62]:50027) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1PzxVw-00021I-LX; Wed, 16 Mar 2011 16:40:17 -0400 Original-Received: from localhost (localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1]) by smtp.cs.ucla.edu (Postfix) with ESMTP id C05E739E810E; Wed, 16 Mar 2011 13:40:14 -0700 (PDT) X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at smtp.cs.ucla.edu Original-Received: from smtp.cs.ucla.edu ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (smtp.cs.ucla.edu [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP id DIQv1tgsqDc1; Wed, 16 Mar 2011 13:40:13 -0700 (PDT) Original-Received: from [131.179.64.200] (Penguin.CS.UCLA.EDU [131.179.64.200]) by smtp.cs.ucla.edu (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id DBB3D39E80DB; Wed, 16 Mar 2011 13:40:13 -0700 (PDT) User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.9.2.13) Gecko/20101209 Fedora/3.1.7-0.35.b3pre.fc14 Thunderbird/3.1.7 In-Reply-To: <83y64eq4ji.fsf@gnu.org> X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.6 (newer, 3) X-Received-From: 131.179.128.62 X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:137317 Archived-At: On 03/16/2011 11:54 AM, Eli Zaretskii wrote: > Anyone who makes changes to the build process or any files > that are related to the build process _must_ worry about lib/, because > without understanding how it works and how it affects the rest of the > code it is very easy to break something, Yes, there are practical reasons why mainstream developers need to worry about lib/ on occasion, just as they need to worry about their C compiler, their 'make' implementation, etc. But the overall goal of lib/ is to make the current platform behave like a GNU platform, so that the rest of Emacs can be written as if it were running in a GNU environment. Obviously lib/ not a perfect GNU emulation, but it does help simplify the rest of Emacs. > without knowing that there are wrappers for system headers > there, it is impossible to understand how certain parts of Emacs code > work on any given platform. Yes, but that's fine. If one wants to *understand* how the porting works, one obviously must look into lib/; and if one wants to port to a non-POSIXy platform, it'll be helpful to understand lib/, at least to some extent, as that can provide useful info on how to port to a non-POSIXy platform. But if one merely wants to develop Emacs proper, one can ignore lib/ (most of the time, anyway), and write mainstream code for the GNU platform, and have it "just work" on other Unix-like platforms. The MS-DOS and MS-Windows code should be similar: as much as possible it should be invisible to mainstream developers, and mainstream code should "just work". A simple guideline to encourage this separation of concerns is: if a file is needed only because of MS-DOS, it should be under msdos/; and similarly for MS-Windows and nt/. This needn't be an ironclad rule, but it's a good guideline to follow when possible, so that mainstream developers are not distracted by the porting code. > "Separated" does not mean "segregated" or "ostracized". People who > happen to use and build the Windows port are responsible for > non-trivial contributions to Emacs development that are certainly no > less than yours... They don't deserve this kind of attitude, under > which it is okay to make their life miserable and every other day > break the port they use This appears to be reading more into my email than what's there (as well as exaggerate a bit :-). In no way has my email suggested the pejorative connotations of "segregrated" or "ostricized", nor have I suggested that it's OK to make anybody's life "miserable". Let's focus on the technical problems rather than personalizing the discussion.