On Tue, Apr 18, 2006 at 02:07:16PM -0700, Christopher D. Quenelle wrote: > I replied to this once using email, but I think it is stuck in the > approver's inbox. The short answer is we might do something like > make /usr/compilers a link similar to /usr/java. But I agree with > Rainer about the evilness of the environment selecting which build > tools are used. If we created /usr/compilers, then the /bin symlinks > would go through /usr/compilers. If people wanted to they could > remove the /bin symlinks and add /usr/compilers to their path. Or > just add /opt/XXX to their path.
Here's a revolutionary idea: stop treating every compiler release as a Major Release and breaking compatibility. The compiler becomes a synchronously-released part of the operating system rather than an add-on product, and installs once into /usr/bin. Users won't need different versions since they'll be compatible. Your group is always looking for ways to convince users that your product is better than gcc. This would be a prime opportunity to avoid one of the problems we have with that compiler - that users typically want more than one version installed because they're all incompatible (i.e., a bugfix you need went into 4.1 but 4.1 also broke code that worked in 3.4, so you need both to build different stuff). Gentoo and Debian have "solutions" to this problem with gcc involving symlinks and wrappers. These workarounds suck; they hide functionality in ways that confuse users. Please don't introduce the same kind of brokenness into Solaris. -- Keith M Wesolowski "Sir, we're surrounded!" Solaris Kernel Team "Excellent; we can attack in any direction!" _______________________________________________ tools-discuss mailing list tools-discuss@opensolaris.org
