On Wed, Oct 14, 2009 at 09:40:49AM +0000, Sylvain Le Gall wrote:
> >> If toto.cma has been compiled with -g, this is at least a warning (I
> >> would even say it is an error).
> >
> > May I remind you that our current policy recommends ("should") compiling
> > all objects with debugging enabled? Chapter 3, on line version at
> > http://pkg-ocaml-maint.alioth.debian.org/ocaml_packaging_policy.html/c305.h=
> > tml
>
> I think it deserve a removal from the policy ;-)
> Do you agree ?
No, not really, but let's proceed in stages.
I concur that thus far we haven't done a good job of enforcing that
policy recommendation (the fact you, which are very active in d-o-m,
were unaware of it is already a good evidence of that). Then, even if I
don't remember exactly the history, I'm confident that the
recommendation was not added by a "lone wolf" :-), we reached a more or
less rough consensus before somebody added it to policy. Before
reharshing the topic, it would be nice if someone can dig up the history
of that addition.
One argument for not removing the "use -g recommendation" is the one
given by Stéphane: -g has no runtime penalty. Also, I add that it is
very useful and badly needed by programmers: when your program fails,
you want to understand _where_, no matter if it is in your code or in a
system library. When the failure is in a system library, it does not
necessarily mean it is a but in that library, it might have been you
that violated some assumption described in the lib API.
That latter aspect is what, in my mind, makes "-g" different from
"-p". When I do profiling I'm usually interested in profiling my own
code, not that of the lib I'm using. Surely sometime you need to do that
as well, but in those cases recompiling them is probably the right way
to proceed, as it is rare enough.
To conclude: I'm for keeping the recommendation.
For coherence it would be nice to actually enforce that recommendation,
I think a lintian *warning* would be appropriate. For an error is
probably too early, we should first make upstream more sensible to that.
Cheers.
--
Stefano Zacchiroli -o- PhD in Computer Science \ PostDoc @ Univ. Paris 7
zack@{upsilon.cc,pps.jussieu.fr,debian.org} -<>- http://upsilon.cc/zack/
Dietro un grande uomo c'è ..| . |. Et ne m'en veux pas si je te tutoie
sempre uno zaino ...........| ..: |.... Je dis tu à tous ceux que j'aime
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