[Mono-devel-list] GAC and third party libraries: post Beta planning.

[Ian MacLean]

Gert Driesen wrote:

>First of all, I'm not just talking about NAnt, you will have similar
>issues for make files ...
>
>  
>
Thats true - of course it only becomes an issue if you're using 
pkg-configured libraries on windows with csc.exe. I assume the -pkg flag 
will work fine with mcs on windows.

>Adding support for specifying packages to reference to NAnt will really
>not be a problem, but it would reduce portability of the build files to
>zero, and that's what I am concerned with ... 
>
>  
>
not necessarily. It would be easy enough to resolve -pkg flags to the 
required -r: value in the nant code itself if the compiler being 
targetted is not mcs.exe. So for a nant build fragment that looks like :

 <csc target="library" >
    <sources>
    ...
    </sources>
    <references>
        <includes name="foo.dll/>
    </references>
    <pkg-references>
        <includes name="gtk-sharp-1.0" />
    </pkg-references>
</csc>

we would spit out the following commandlines:
for mcs:

mcs ... /r:foo.dll -pkg  gtk-sharp

for csc:

csc /r:foo.dll -r:fullpath/gtk-sharp.dll ie nant will do the pkg-config 
lookup to get the file reference.

note the pkg-references doesn't exist yet - just laying out ideas for now.

>I just don't understand why its such an issue to have the mono system
>assemblies available in both the GAC and a separate directory, 
>
I'm not clear on this either. Is this the "two copies" problem that 
Miguel mentioned ? What exactly is the full issue - I 've scanned back 
thru the rest of this thread and I can't find a full description.

>>As for MonoDevelop, it doesnt, and I have no plans to ever make that
>>happen on my own.
>>    
>>
>
>No, I understand.  And I'm not saying you should, but it does say
>something about the importance of portability lately, no ?
>  
>
I'm pretty sure MonoDevelop is making use of many gnome/linux specific 
features to make it a better dev tool for that platform and I think 
thats a good thing. Portability has never been a design goal as far as 
I'm aware - except with keeping in sync with some of the sharpdevelop 
libraries  -Todd, correct me if I'm wrong.

>Shouldn't Novell/Ximian be showcasing mono's ability to run applications
>on all platforms, and frameworks ?
>
>This is no criticism, I just think that would be sending out a better
>message (to potential Windows developers) ...
>

Gert - don't take this the wrong way but your tone on this stuff has 
been just a tad confrontational. Sure there are issues coming up but 
thats only natural with a system of this complexity.  Compatibility with 
the ms tools is a worthy goal and maybe its the case that callin 
pkg-config inline could be a feasible alternative to adding mcs specific 
compiler flags - however a well reasoned explanation of why thats the 
case is always going to get a better response than "doesn't ximian care 
about compatibility ?" style rants.

Ian