Re: glib/iconv : delayed dependency

[Hans Breuer <hans breuer org>]

At 18:46 14.05.01 -0400, Havoc Pennington wrote:
>
>"Murray Cumming" <murrayc usa net> writes:
>> 
>> That's a good reason - you are removing the dependency for users who do not
>> need it. Sorry for not seeing this.
>
>I'm not sure it's right to remove the dependency though, because
>really nearly all users will need it eventually.
>
>e.g. if I put a g_convert() in gtk_init(), I wouldn't feel bad about
>that. A working port of GLib has a working g_convert().
>
Sure, a working production quality library shouldn't do that. But
there never was such for win32. Gtk-1.4 which IMO was close to the
goal was skipped. Gtk-2.0 appears to be about a year over schedule
now and still getting new dependencies.

>You are basically allowing people to install a broken GLib, and then
>they get mysterious failure with certain apps at some later time. Is
>that really a good idea?
>
No, it isn't. At least not if I would give any guarantees. But I'm 
doing all this in my spare time with appropriate warnings. 

All this was part of a temporary sollution. But I'm afraid that the 
binary weight of final Gtk-2.0 - if it ever arises - will exceed my 
bandwith and internet presence anyway - with all it's new 
dependencies :).

BTW: the 'mysterious error' the user gets is:
a console window saying that iconv.dll wasn't found, maybe it should
mention that the program will either handle it or crash shortly
after that. 

Have Fun,
	Hans
-------- Hans "at" Breuer "dot" Org -----------
Tell me what you need, and I'll tell you how to 
get along without it.                -- Dilbert