Date: Sun, 6 Feb 2005 19:45:19 -0800 (PST)
From: Tom Lord <lord@emf.net>
Message-Id: <200502070345.TAA08448@emf.net>
To: rbcollins@cygwin.com
In-reply-to: <1107746553.11080.27.camel@localhost> (message from Robert
	Collins on Mon, 07 Feb 2005 14:22:33 +1100)
Subject: Re: [Gnu-arch-users] GNU Arch status update
Cc: gnu-arch-users@gnu.org, ben@benfinney.id.au
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   From: Robert Collins <rbcollins@cygwin.com>

   Some details would help be here. For example, if the failure is removing
   libneons bundling, thats one thing.

The manner in which it was removed, yes.

   Likewise the test case failures are very concerning for me. So what,
   pray tell is the regression ?.

It appears to be another layer of build failure.  Whether the tests
pass if all of those are resolved is unknown.

   > In the pipeline (I am told) are baz changes that will make that
   > even worse (e.g., a deliberate hard dependency on GNU libc).

   Erm, the only one I know of is the discussion about using the system
   regex library rather than the hackerlab one - and that only if we can't
   easily fix :cut: in hackerlab.

That's a serious decision.


   I'm not aware of any hard dependencies
   planned on GNU libc

There are (at most) three regexp engines in the free software world
with anywhere near enough performance to work for `inventory'.  Of
those, only 1 is in a free version of libc (and, of the three, with
considerable respect for its author, i must note that it is the one
I think most likely to have performance problems for uses within arch
but outside of `inventory' itself).

In other words, the decision to use the system regex is pragmatically
equivalent to the decision to rely on GNU libc.

Moreover, that decision is pragmatically equivalent to deciding /not/
to rely on Rx (and its non-standard features such as :cut:).  It's a very
impactful decision you are making there and one whose impact I happen
to question.


   Where did you get that information ? (I'd like to correct it at the
   source if I can).

I got that information from you.   I just happen to interpret what you 
said differently than you do.


   > Does that clarify things a bit?  People often complain that I seem to
   > always express myself with a "negative tone".  That's certainly not my
   > intent here.  1.4pre1 was a valuable experiment, in my book, and the
   > final chapter on merging from baz to GNU Arch is far from written.

   Certainly it clarifies things for me, my incipient flame-bait has been
   erased ...

Good.

-t


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