Re: [miguel@nuclecu.unam.mx: New Linux/SPARC snapshot] (fwd)
Mail Archive writes:
> You know this is where pristine(SP?) sources would be nice that way we
> can apply debian-platform-specific patches to0 the source tree that way
> we only hve to have a so-called-distfiles-directory that is NON platform
> specific. This will make porting MUCH easier...
I disagree. IMO there should be no platform-specific patches.
In the rare situations where the source code can't be written
to work correctly on all platforms then debian.rules script should
handle giving the compiler the right -D flags or whatever.
If we provide a mechanism for platform-specific source code trees
then:
* We can't see and edit all of the source code to a package at once.
* Patches will get put into the wrong diff.
* We lose focus on portability issues.
* We have to think of a sensible way to allow our diff-generation
scripts to decide whether an edit we're making belongs in the
platform-specific of the generic diff.
In this day and age there are very few programs that need to have
different source code to compile on different CPUs.
Lest anyone think that I speak as someone who doesn't have to deal
with this problem, I'd like to point out that I'm the maintainer of
PGP, which has assembler routines for some architectures.
Ian.
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