On Wed, Aug 20, 2008 at 05:19:17PM +0200, Xavier Leroy wrote: > > Hello Sven, > > >>> 1- "ocamlc -custom" is deprecated and packages that use it should be > >>> fixed. > >>> > >> If this option is deprecated, i think we should handle it so for all > >> debian package. See at the end of the mail for a proposed way of doing > >> thing. > > > > One question though which comes to mind while reading this thread. When > > was the -custom version deprecated, and what does this imply for the > > version of ocaml in debian which will ship with lenny. > > OK, maybe "deprecated" isn't the right word.
:) > The -custom option is not deprecated in the sense of "it will be > removed at some point in the future". We Caml people take backward > compatibility very very seriously. This option is here to stay, > but not to be improved, because: Well, let's rephrase this, since when is the shared stub way "recomended" over the -custom version. This was the first time that i really heard about this, altough i have been trying to do away with the -custom flag in projects since some time. Often folk only use -custom to do away with the dependencies, and kind of create a "static" version of the binary, which is easier to install standalone, which is not the debian use-case. > The -custom option is deprecated in the sense that, since the > introduction of dynamic loading of stub libraries in the bytecode > interpreter circa 2001, there exists a much better alternative: > put the native stubs into shared libraries and produce "pure" bytecode > executables that dynamically load these libraries. This is better > than -custom for several reasons: > > - smaller executables; > - bytecode executables can be shared across different platforms; > - it is possible to use such mixed Caml/native libraries from the toplevel. Indeed :) > So, I think everyone should be gently encouraged to use shared libs > instead of -custom. Especially since, as I mentioned earlier, some > Caml projects that started before 2001 still force -custom when > linking with standard libraries like unix.cma or str.cma, while this > is now entirely unnecessary. > > Hope this addresses your concerns. So, are you officially "gently encouraging" ? Is the community really aware of your position ? Friendly, Sven Luther -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]