Re: gnustep-make and NSPathUtilities patch

[Marc Ordinas i Llopis]

Sheldon Gill wrote:
> To re-iterate for Win32:
>
> 1) No .conf support. It's quite alien to the platform. The same information 
> that we get from '/etc/GNUstep/GNUstep.conf' we should get from 
> HKLM\Software\GNU\GNUstep. (see previous posts)
>
> - Yes, you'll need some way to set up the registry keys. Ideally an installer. 
> It's the way for the platform. Just deal with it. One day there'll be a nice 
> downloadable installer for users to get the core platform (Foundation, AppKit 
> and any required tools for a general users distribution)
> If you're not sharing a set of libraries you should look at launchers, static 
> linking and other compile-time solutions for your application as the best way 
> out.

Sorry, can't do that... One of the reasons we are using GNUstep is that 
it can be all put in a CD and started from there. No registry for us, 
sorry. Besides, it'll give you lots of problems in other ways, the 
registry is one big headache and we are not willing to go there if we 
can avoid it.

And .conf files are not alien to the platform. They are just called .ini 
 files, and even the shell uses them.

> 3) This means gnustep-make becomes an optional install of interest only to 
> developers. They'll need to do more to make the system build friendly. It's a 
> tough life...

I think it's all right if developers need to put their code in a 
non-spaced dir, as long as users don't have to.

> 4) If all fully Developer-centric things go into /Developer then it's quite 
> reasonable to expect static libraries to be there as well IMHO.

Certainly.

> > By the way, DLLs need to be in the Tools folder in Win32 because this
> > brain-dead system has only just one path, not one for binaries and
> > another for libraries.
>
>
> Umm... _no_!  Putting shared libraries into the Tools folder is even more 
> brain-dead. Don't propagate the stupidity. There are better solutions.
>
> It would seem to me that -base.dll and -gui.dll should be installed into 
> %WINDIR%\System32 along with the required support libraries (libtiff etc) and 
> all other libraries be found via the bundle mechanisms which can be made more 
> win-friendly.

There is no reason to put anything in System32. Dlls in 
GNUSTEP_SYSTEM_ROOT/Tools works perfectly, even in the CD situation I 
described before.

> > Thanks a lot for this work, tell us if you need help porting it to Win32.
>
>
> Thank you for the offer. If I need to I'll take you up on it.
> On the other hand; if you need changes for your commercial applications I _am_ 
> a consultant at reasonable rates ;)

I'll have that in mind, thanks.

Regards,

Marc Ordinas i Llopis