Re: About Guile crypto support

[Andy Wingo]

Howdy,

On Sat 09 Feb 2013 18:50, Mark H Weaver <address@hidden> writes:

> Andy Wingo <address@hidden> writes:
>
>> I have the feeling that we should implement our own FOO function
>> without libBAR.
>
> Wouldn't it be better to fix these problems in libBAR, to the benefit
> of all its users, than for each of its users to duplicate its
> functionality within their own projects?

This is a nice description of the advantages of shared libraries in
general, but to be fair we should list the disadvantages as well:

  - Coordination cost (working with upstream on bugs/features)
  - QA cost (does the user have a bug-free libfoo or not?)
  - Runtime cost (another shared library)
  - Extensibility cost (does using the library prevent us from making
    extensions to functionality in the area that the library solves?)

So I think the discussion about external dependencies should be, "does
this dependency pay for itself?"  For libgc, gmp, libffi, and
libunistring, the answer for me is "yes, definitely".  For ltdl, my
instinct is "no".

Just MHO :)

Andy
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