Get rid of libtool? [was Re: Makefile problems]

Sun Feb 24 19:39:00 GMT 2002

On Mon, Feb 25, 2002 at 01:04:58PM +1300, Bryce McKinlay wrote:
>> I must admit that, after a frustrating afternoon yesterday trying to 
> figure out silly libjava build problems when I really wanted to do 
> productive gcj hacking, I am sympathetic to RTH's recent suggestion that 
> we get rid of libtool (and automake?) and instead make sure that "gcc 
> -shared" knows how to build a shared library on all the platforms that 
> we care about.

I would fight the removal of automake. It's been awfully darn handy for
maintaining libstdc++. (Yes, the currently-required version has its problems
with subdirs, but the current automake release seems to have fixed those.)
Libtool is completely opaque to me. I wouldn't fight its removal, but
I'm not pushing for it either. I also never use it in any of my own
projects... [maintainer hat OFF] frankly, the platforms on which libtool
is supposed to be magically helpful are platforms which IMHO need to die,
and the sooner we abandon them the better.
Phil
-- 
If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater
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