Re: [Oopic-compiler-devel] Hello from the new guy

[Neil D. <nd...@us...>]

Brian wrote:
> On Fri, May 28, 2004 at 10:30:38PM +0100, Neil Durant wrote:
> > The question of whether we ship tools we don't maintain (eg Python if we go
> > down that route, *lex, yacc/bison etc) is a tricky one.  
> 
> I'm not aware of any projects that use Python *and* package Python as
> part of the distribution (I've not come across any Perl apps either
> that do this).  I believe the way to handle this is to (1) ensure
> backwards-compatibility as versions of system tool X change, and
> (2) specify a minimum version of support for that system tool.

Agreed.

> If you start packaging the system tools as part of the toolkit, it
> will make it look like you offer support for those system tools as
> well.  That is probably a closed can of worms asking to be opened. 

Agreed.

> Most *nix users would not stand to have system tools installed, and
> would probably resist any attempt to do so.  Personally, I would not
> want to install any application or toolkit on my *nix or OS X boxes
> that required me to use the system tools as shipped with the app. 

Agreed - and some people might be suspicious of us distributing things like
Perl or Python or anything like that, which would be picked up and used by
system scripts etc.

> You can't hold everyone's hands.  The end user must take some
> responsiblity for making sure their system tools support the toolkit.
> We can help through the installation process to identify deficiencies
> a particular system may have, and direct the end user to where they
> can obtain the system tools necessary for the toolkit.

I guess we could hold the Windows users' hands - they're unlikely to have
any dependencies installed already (unlike any *nix systems).

Neil
-- 
Neil Durant
<nd...@us...>