Hi Gary, * Gary V. Vaughan wrote on Tue, Feb 21, 2006 at 11:03:17PM CET: > > In principle, this seems like a good thing to go in, except that I still > have one nagging doubt: If 1.5.22 is the only release with the > regressed semantics for -static, then for bugwards compatibility, I'd be > inclined to revert to it's former meaning with years old pedigree, and > come up with a new flag name for the (better) semantics we introduced in > 1.5.22...
We are going in circles here: 1.5.22 has the -static semantics that 1.4.x and all releases before 1.4 had. So effectively reverting that was reenabling backwards compatibility. It also was the behavior documented all the way. I do see reason in the new semantics of -static-libtool-libs, which is what 1.5.x (x<=20) -static did. However, it was never documented that way. BTW, actually I see good reasons for both semantics; they just serve slightly different purposes. At one point in time we just have to stop going round in this circle. One person complained about 1.5.22 -static, and he agreed to use the new flag if given, so we invented -static-libtool-libs. > Hmmm (thinking out loud), might it be better to come up with two > entirely new flag names, one for non-1.5.22 semantics and another for > 1.5.22 semantics to recommend from here on in. Not necessary IMVHO: it creates another backward incompatibility step for users. And no, I don't want to recommend one behavior over the other; someone would need to convince me which behavior is better, and why. Even if there would be two new names: this patch introduces a new name, nothing more. > If we get a '-static' > flag, we should then issue a big fat warning that for compatibility > we will interpret this flag as for pre-1.5.22, but it would be better > for the developer to pass one of the new flag names instead to avoid > ambiguity in the future. Why? It is mentioned in NEWS that the behavior was changed, the next release will have a mention that -static-libtool-libs will from now on give you the other behavior. > What say you? I say these things will all become irrelevant when per-deplibs static flags are in a released version. I surely would like to convince you rather than to have you (or anyone else) give in to my nagging. ;-) Cheers, Ralf
