Re: [jamboost] lib prefix on Unix

From: Toon Knapen (toon.knapen_at_[hidden])
Date: 2005-06-16 07:32:03

Vladimir Prus wrote:
> FYI,
> I've committed a change that prepend a "lib" prefix to all targets with
> types derived from LIB, on Unix. (Cygwin is not considered Unix for this 
> case).
> 
> This is needed mostly because on Unix, all libraries always have this prefix,
> and there's no reason for us to be different. 

AFAICT it's not true that all libraries need to start with the 'lib' 
prefix on unix. It is necessary though if you link to the library using 
the '-l' flag (e.g. '-lfoo' on the link-line will search for a library 
libfoo.so or libfoo.a). However when specifying the patch and filename, 
the filename of the library need not start with the 'lib' prefix.

So this change will break all projects that generate libraries that do 
not have the 'lib' prefix ;-(
Personally I think this new behaviour tries to automate soth that is 
difficult to automate and I'm afraid that adding this 'lib' prefix 
automatically will consume more resources than not having the automation 
(and finally automation is about reducing resources).

> At the moment, prefix is not 
> configurable by the user because I don't want to implement any flexibility 
> unless it's needed. So if you need to customize the prefix, let me know.
> 
> This should be break anything, except that if you have "lib" prefix already,
> current code will add yet another "lib". If that's a problem for anybody, let 
> me know -- I can make the code omit "lib" prefix if already present.

Here you go already, explain that to a new user: that bbv2 will add a 
lib-prefix unless there is already one. And suppose somebody want to 
call his library liblib.so. Imagine the support-questions about this on 
the ml!

I do not want to be negative here, I'm just getting more convinced 
everyday that before automating soth one must be certain that it will 
safe spending (development-) time.