Re: Replace ltdl with GLib's GModule

[Mike Gran <spk121@yahoo.com>]

On Wed, Mar 25, 2020 at 04:33:50PM +0700, Duy Nguyen wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 25, 2020 at 5:24 AM Mike Gran <spk121@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> > Hello all-
> >
> > In a fit of pique, I pushed a new branch of Guile to the repo
> > called wip-replace-ltdl-with-gmodule.  It replaces the dynamic linking
> > library libltdl from libtool with the analagous library GModule
> > from GLib.  It was remarkably easy, and, after a cursory test
> > I was surprised to find that it seems to be working.
> >
> > GModule itself is a standalone library, but, I think it depends
> > on GLib.  It might be possible to remove that dependency without
> > much difficulty, but unfortunately, then you would be left with
> > another library to maintain.
> >
> > Anyway, you may find it amusing, at least.
> 
> So knee-jerk reaction, what does GModule do better than libltdl? Or
> perhaps why is libltdl "bad"?

Technically, GModule and libltdl are quite similar.  But
1. Libtool hasn't made a release in 6 years.  For something so
   often used in GNU, it seems to be quite neglected.
2. Its default error message "file not found" doesn't always mean
   that the file is not found.

I haven't used GModule with Guile enough to decide if it is
technically better, yet.  But, it is updated more often.

-Mike Gran