Re: [avrdude-dev] [patch #8967] Change ft2xx library to ftdi_syncbb instead of libusb

[Joerg Wunsch]

As Didrik Madheden wrote:

> I think there is a point to having an official binary with support
> FT2xx. It would be for the benefit of exactly those who don't have the
> skill or time to build their own avrdude.

Well, I already find it quite ironic that there's apparently nobody
else but me who is willing to contribute Win32 binary builds for
AVRDUDE. --- Me, who I doesn't use Windows at all, and who
cross-compiles them under FreeBSD in a MinGW32 environment.

I thus figure, the demand for even a diversity of Win32 builds must be
small enough that nobody feels bothered to do it.  C'mon, compiling a
pile of source code is not rocket science.  It's just installing a
bunch of tools, and running them.  One doesn't even have to understand
a single line of the source code for that.

> You could conditionally load DLLs on demand using
> the LoadLibrary API function, instead of statically linking them.
> Avrdude could handle missing libraries gracefully instead of failing
> with an OS error message that a DLL is missing before avrdude even has
> a chance to run.

This requires a major restructuring of the code.

Right now, the ability to compile against certain libraries, and thus
enable various pieces of code (or not), is detected by configure, and
the code adapts to it using #ifdef.

With your suggestion, all code needs to be compiled, pretending the
library existed on the target platform (which would, at the very
least, require those librarie's header files being present at compile
time), and then dynamically decide which modules can be offered to the
user and which can't.

I'm not opposed to that, provided 1) someone (not me!) actually
implements it, 2) that someone also implements the Posix dlopen()
counterpart (so all non-Windows platforms would gain the same
functionality), and 3) that someone tests the entire stuff against at
least the more important programming adapters.  Certainly, that
magically someone would not be left alone for the job, however, she'd
have to be the driving force for implementing and testing it.
-- 
cheers, Joerg               .-.-.   --... ...--   -.. .  DL8DTL

http://www.sax.de/~joerg/
Never trust an operating system you don't have sources for. ;-)