+----- On Tue, 10 Feb 1998 15:04:50 +0100, Casper Dik writes:
|
| >coleman(_at_)math(_dot_)gatech(_dot_)edu wrote:
| >> (I haven't decide whether it should be a runtime or compile-time option).
| >
| >Please don't ADD any compile-time options! Compile-time options are evil.
| >Not everyone in the universe wants to compile every piece of software they
| >use.
|
|
| hear, hear!
|
| Compile time options are evil. Apart from making configuring and testing
| hard (oops, want to change this option needs recompile) it makes binary
| distributions infeasible.
|
| Keep in mind that many people now download binary distributions (very
| popular for Linux and also for Solaris). Do we need 2^n binary
| distributions (where n is the number of binary options)? I think not.
I disagree, having non-compile time options leads to program bloat. Now
we have 2 evils which can easily be resolved by making the compile
time option yes/no/runtime. Look at Linux, should the kernel cater for
every device imaginable, or should you get something that works
reasonably well for most machines but which can be tuned to your system
if you want.
/Michael