[Ecls-list] Advantages and disadvantages of included libraries?

[Mark Hoemmen]

On Wed, Aug 20, 2008 at 3:47 PM, John Connors <johnc at yagc.ndo.co.uk> wrote:
> What are the advantages and disadvantages of using the included Boehm
> library as oppsed to simply using an existing system version? Also, what
> is the advantage of the included version of gmp?

I can't speak for the chief developers, but here's my opinion:

It's friendly, especially for novice users, to make the ./configure -
make - make install routine "just work," rather than break with "I
can't find this library" errors.  Imagine if the website where you
would normally download the libraries is down, for example, or if your
system administrator installed the GC or GMP libraries in a highly
nonstandard location which the ./configure script can't find.  Also,
if the GC or the GMP changes incompatibly, then ECL will still work.

There's a similar discussion going on in the CFFI mailing list about
which libraries should be included in the distribution vs. treated as
dependencies.

mfh