Re: pkg-config wisdom

[Tim Post]

On Sun, 2009-10-25 at 11:07 -1000, William Pursell wrote:
> Alfred M. Szmidt wrote:
> >    > pkg-config is broken because it checks for the existance of
> >    > libraries, and not for the features that are required for the
> >    > program to run.
> > 
> >    It does not even check for the existence of libraries.
> >    It checks for the existence of a .pc file and assumes
> >    that the user (or administrator) has supplied the correct
> >    information.
> > 
> > Sighs, which is the exact same thing.
> > 
> 
> No, it is not the same thing.  The user can construct
> foo.pc to add -lbar to the build when the
> package requests libfoo.  The user has more
> control over certain aspects of the build,
> but less safety because no checks are
> done during configure time to ensure
> that libbar even exists, unless the
> maintainer takes extra steps to do so
> beyond invoking PKG_CHECK_MODULES.  There
> is an extra level of indirection available
> to the user at configure time.
> 

In that regard, the problem becomes a moot point. If the user is skilled
enough to go tinkering with linkage, they are keen enough to understand
why builds break.

If the goal of using either or both methods is to provide a good
experience to the user, we can't help it if they deliberately shoot
themselves in the foot. The same insanity could also be illustrated by a
user making a symlink to libc6 named libfoo, just to stop configure
scripts from complaining.

Cheers,
--Tim


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