Re: libgnomecanvas build problem

[Maciej Stachowiak <mjs noisehavoc org>]

On 11Sep2001 02:24AM (-0400), Iain wrote:
> 
> > 
> > You decided to stop compiling Nautilus rather than configuring with
> > --disable-more-warnings?
> > 
> 
> Yes, because a) half the time it never worked and I ended up editing
> config.status
> and b) I often just use !./con or !./au which if I was making something
> locally that didn't need stupid warnings I wouldn't have in the history.

alias c './configure --disable-more-warnings' is one low-cost
technical solution to thsi problem.
 
> If the lead developer(s) are using -Werror then yes, I accept there will
> be fewer problems, however, you can still have the -Werror turned on and
> keep that warning count at ~0(*) without forcing the pedantry on me.
> There is nothing, really, that takes it out of that realm, but,
> potential users and potential developers are not people you want to piss
> off.

There was a period in Nautilus development where all the active
Nautilus developers except one used -Werror. The end result was that
most of us spent a lot of time cleaning up one person's
warnings. Since the current most active contributors to Nautilus have
relatively limited time to work on it, I think it would be a loss if
they had to spend a lot of their time cleaning up other people's
warnings.

Personally, I don't think a warning-free build is just a matter of
pedantry - many nautilus and gnome-vfs warnings (including ones that
came up only on particular platforms) turned out to be real bugs. And
sometimes it's nicer to find bugs with the compiler instead of with
the debugger.

Why don't we just accept that this is a matter of preference, do it
the way we want in our own modules, and let other people do it the way
they want, instead of trying to claim one way is "right" and another
is "wrong"? Clearly both approaches have perceived advantages to the
people using them.

Regards,

Maciej