[Mono-dev] Use eglib as a default for mono 2.6

[Paolo Molaro]

On 04/15/09 Joachim Ante wrote:
> Can you guys please switch to eglib as the default across the board,  
> so that this codepath gets properly tested in the real world. We need  
> to move towards using a single mono source base for all our platforms  
> and relying on external dependencies in mono is a lot of pain when we  
> try to build mono.
> 
> I asked if that could be done for mono 2.4 and it was too late for  
> that, I understand. But could you guys please fix this for mono 2.6.  
> It would really make a big difference for us.

I already explained this some time ago, but maybe it was only on irc and
at the mono summit.
The short answer is: we will never switch to eglib as default.
The primary reason is that the eglib symbols would interfere with the
real glib symbols used by so many mono apps.

What needs to happen is the following:
1) take a data structure implemented in eglib and copy it to mono/utils,
renaming the file and the symbols to have mono_ instead of g_ at the
start.
2) replace all the uses of that glib data structure in the mono code
with the new equivalent mono_ version
3) repeat the above for all the data structures, functions and GLib types
used by mono

After that is done, remove eglib from svn, remove the glib dependency
from the mono build, change the libmono version number since the ABI and
API breaks, fix all the bugs that showed up because of the changes,
make a new release.
The library version change will happen together with the other API
breaks we have planned (which depend on the new GC and a few other minor
changes in the runtime), but that stuff is not required for your needs.

So far nobody has volunteered for the tasks 1-3.

lupus

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