From: Daniel Barkalow <barkalow@iabervon.org>
Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2005 18:43:40 GMT
Subject: Re: Status of Mac OS/X ports of git and cogito?
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.63.0509111427190.23242@iabervon.org>
In-Reply-To: <7vvf17tsoa.fsf@assigned-by-dhcp.cox.net>

On Sun, 11 Sep 2005, Junio C Hamano wrote:

> Patrick and Jason CC:'ed because they also have portability
> issues and seem to have good ideas about how they should be
> solved.  Linus CC:'ed because he once expressed rather strongly
> his dislike about autoconf.
> 
> Johannes Schindelin <Johannes.Schindelin@gmx.de> writes:
> 
> > I have three fixes in my personal tree without which git refuses to 
> > compile:
> >
> > - daemon.c needs a define or typedef for socklen_t.
> 
> I still keep that patch around (the patch was end of July), but
> have not touched it only because I did not hear from you asking
> about its inclusion.
> 
> > - mailinfo.c needs to have a simple strcasestr implementation, because 
> >   10.2.8 (at least in my setup) is lacking it!
> 
> Yes, I've used it knowing that it is marked as a GNU extension,
> hoping if somebody else can supply a patch to work it around ;-).
> 
> I am slightly reluctant to do autoconf [*1*], but I might be
> tempted to take patches if it is done cleanly.

I've never noticed autoconf successfully improving portability, and it 
seems to mostly obfuscate errors. E.g., the GNU binutils I was trying to 
build recently, if you don't have "msgfmt", helpfully runs "no" instead. 
Of course, that's autoconf being misused, but if binutils can't use it 
correctly, I doubt any other project can keep from messing up.

Compatibility workarounds with simple detection scripts invoked by people 
who find they actually need workarounds are probably best.

	-Daniel
*This .sig left intentionally blank*