[fpc-pascal]Graphics cards, VGALIB

[Marco van de Voort]

> On 5 sep 2004, at 18:29, Marco van de Voort wrote:
> 
> > Setup could run gtk-config and stuff it in the files. Then at least we
> > keep the compiler free from such patchwork, and center the "ugliness" 
> > in
> > the weights file that can be operated on by the user, external tools 
> > etc.
> 
> Until someone upgrades his libraries and the next compile will be 
> broken again. You have to work with makefiles to get around this. 

This is no solution. I can use that, you can use that, 99% of our users
can't.

The chances that the users get into problems with complex makefiles etc,
is much harder than to have to tell them to run "fpcupdateweights" after
a gtk version change.

> It has nothing to do with ugliness or patchwork on the compiler or
> language side imo, it's simply the way unix-type systems work and you have
> to deal with it one way or another.

Yes, and the C-style is not the way for our users. 
 
> The C-style building by default is simply more flexible in this regard, 
> because the compiler is dumber and you can do whatever you want in the 
> makefiles. If the compiler largely takes over make's job and you don't 
> want to deviate from this, there is no way but to build in more 
> make-like functionality in the compiler.

What is exactly wrong with having the weights somewhere? I never said
anything about make in compiler, since it is not an issue of make, it is an
issue of order of libraries.

That C (or better: GNU) solves this with configure/makefile fiddling and
outside the compiler, doesn't mean we should either. We don't have e.g. a
"configure" that is kept up to date outside of our projects for major
platforms to fall back on. 

It was all different if this was some obscure package we were dealing with,
but this is gtk2 and SDL, and a large percentage of our *nix users will deal
with it sooner or later.