Re: Bug#43787: changed title, and remade the proposed change

[Ben Collins <bcollins@debian.org>]

On Thu, Sep 09, 1999 at 08:14:36PM +0200, Marcus Brinkmann wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 09, 1999 at 11:20:48AM -0400, Ben Collins wrote:
> > "You have to implement debugging this way if you are going to
> > support it". Two reasons:
> > 
> > 1) Right now policy does not require -g, but only suggests an
> >    example, yet everyone is compilg this way. I don't think our
> >    developers have to be forced into every possible detail of
> >    packaging. Who knows, with the option to do it differently,
> >    some one may find a better way. Also, with a suggest, you can
> >    always file a wishlist bug to the affect if you want. So they
> >    can support either form (their own and the suggested one in
> >    policy).
> 
> Your proposal was concerned about autobuilders. It would be great to have an
> autobuuilder someday which produces packages with debugging symbols. Only a
> common interface can make this possible.

No my proposal is because of the autobuilder, not aimed at making it better.
The point is to get out the -g suggestion from polic while still giving
a prefered way of getting the debug info.

> >    The main point being, that most developers _want_ to be standard
> >    and will not want to go the extra mile of implementing something
> >    completely different than policy suggests that wont get used.
> 
> Then we can make it mandatory just as well.

Then we can not make it mandatory as well, the arguments are the same.

> > 2) Perhaps there is no way for that maintainers package to comply
> >    exactly with the details of the requirement.
> 
> Erm. _If_ you can support building with debugging information, you can
> make it possible to activate it with parsing DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS.
> How can this ever be not true? You can't think of an example because there
> is non. Probalby you are misunderstanding what my preferred requirements
> would be.

You don't know this for sure.

> >    Also there may be different cases of what debugging actually is in
> >    a package. Perhaps it is a set of scripts, that when generated normally
> >    strips out some of the debug code, but can also be generated with the
> >    debug code. We don't know, so we can't force this.
> 
> You are missing my point. My concerns are only about the interface, not
> under which circumstances the support should be implemented (we all want it
> to happen in as many cases as possible), and not about the way it is
> implemented (CFLAGS=-g, or whatever).
>  
> > This proposal has clear advantages (as others have admitted)
> 
> In my eyes, it has not an advantage, but disadvantages. First, we will
> probably get less support for building with debugging info because it is not
> the default anymore and adding the interface is not encouraged anymore. This
> will give a small compile time increase at the cost of making it harder for
> users to get packages with debug information.
> 
> I wthdraw my second. I don't object to your proposal, although I find it
> suboptimal at least. Instead, I'll probably raise another proposal somewhat
> later. Obviously, in the current atmosphere here I can't get my point
> across.

Sorry to see you take this to that extreme. I'm voicing my opinion. If I feel that
there is speific agreement that it _should_ be forced instead of suggested, I'll be
more than happy to comply and change the proposal. Right now, I don't see any agreement
that this is what most want.

> > Fortunately, this one will
> > atleast be able to back out easily because it is non-obtrusive to how we currently
> > do things (we still get stripped packages without changes).
> 
> Oh how great. This is really a great proposal of you, that accomplishes such
> a difficult goal.

Let's see, I was rude to you how? Thanks for the civil reply.

Ben