Re: MAKECMDGOALS and spaces

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: David <bouncingcats@gmail.com>
> Date: Sat, 20 Feb 2021 11:05:36 +1100
> 
> Namely that I don't care about Windows or know it in any
> useful detail, but I wanted to share the other idea in case it
> turned out to be actually useful even though I had no means
> to test it or any experience to judge if it was a stupid idea or not.

You may not care about Windows, but supporting Windows is what makes
GNU utilities such as Make more viable than if it would support only a
single OS.  It's what keeps the GNU ecosystem more diverse, and thus
less likely to become ill or die when eventually the Linux OS will
give way to something new.

Moreover, file names with spaces are found not only on Windows
nowadays.  So I guess what you regard as "stupid idea" is for some
reason picked up by GNU/Linux and other systems (perhaps because they
lack imagination, and basically copycat every UI idea they find on
Windows?).

> I think that Kaz's suggestion to use an installer is probably a
> better one, even though that horrifies me even further. An
> OS where one is compelled use some non-open installer
> to write entries into an opaque registry, ugh, I don't like it :)

No one is compelled to use installers, that idea is not the only one.
Using hard links (present on Windows filesystems since long ago) is
one way; using 8+3 file names with numeric tails is another.

But IME the best solution for this is not to put anything under
"Program Files" (or more generally anywhere on the C: drive): those
directories are watched by several OS mechanisms designed to prevent
corruption, and usually have special access control rights.  Programs
installed by the user are better off if they steer away of those
places.  My suggestion -- and what I personally use for many years --
is to create a Posix-like tree in D:\usr, and install all programs
like Make there, adding D:\usr\bin to your PATH.  This allows to solve
easily the problem discussed here and many others as well.

HTH