e: Problem to use VFS modules

[Michael Sweet]

Andrew Tridgell wrote:
> ...
> If we can use libtool to separate out just the bits that need to be
> compiled as pic, and the bits that create the .so then great. If doing
> that means we have to completely change the way we build stuff then
> forget it.

Unfortunately, it's all or nothing with libtool.

Fortunately, a few lines in the configure script should be all that is
needed to handle the system-specific stuff; CUPS does this already
with great success, and it accounts for a mere 20 lines of scripting
to handle just about every UNIX OS in existance.

Also, it is not necessary to build PIC and non-PIC object files to
support static and dynamic linkage.  PIC code can still be compiled
statically and the performance penalty is extremely small (probably
not even measureable on today's systems)  The only difference is that
the executables are slightly larger - the worst case I've seen is
about 5% overhead...

Why not use libtool?  Because it hides too much, and when it doesn't
work (read: lots of non-open source UNIX's and non-UNIX's) you have no
easy way of tracking the problem down.  It also forces you to use
libtool for everything (compiling, linking, building libraries, etc.)

Personally, I wish they had just added some autoconf/automake rules
to substitute the appropriate commands and options in your makefiles.
Much cleaner and doesn't hide things from the developer.

-- 
______________________________________________________________________
Michael Sweet, Easy Software Products                  mike at easysw.com
Printing Software for UNIX                       http://www.easysw.com