X-Git-Url: http://git.hungrycats.org/cgi-bin/gitweb.cgi?p=xscreensaver;a=blobdiff_plain;f=utils%2FMakefile.in;h=17fd7b664a331f1059a5db5d29641c783e1d73f2;hp=ef96cd5f64bb0e7a1da93f77e52c3ac8e8fc97ac;hb=481b95e2617b69e6fd4444432747d7e1e0c3dc85;hpb=0bd2eabab3e404c6769fe8f59b639275e960c415

diff --git a/utils/Makefile.in b/utils/Makefile.in
index ef96cd5f..17fd7b66 100644
--- a/utils/Makefile.in
+++ b/utils/Makefile.in
@@ -1,6 +1,79 @@
 # utils/Makefile.in --- xscreensaver, Copyright (c) 1997 Jamie Zawinski.
 # the `../configure' script generates `utils/Makefile' from this file.
 
+
+# The utilities in this directory are used mostly by the demos in ../hacks/.
+# The Makefile in that directory builds executables by simply referencing
+# the .o files in this directory.
+
+
+##############################################################################
+#
+# Some rambling about dynamic libraries follows, ignore it if you don't care
+# (which is almost assuredly the case.)
+#
+#
+# It would probably be sensible to just build a single .a file in this
+# directory, and link the hacks against that (statically.)  I haven't done
+# that for two reasons: first, it works now, and why fix what ain't broke;
+# second, it wouldn't actually improve anything for the end user (it would
+# just make the Makefiles be a little smaller.)
+#
+# People sometimes suggest that the stuff in this directory should be in a
+# dynamic library, and that the hacks should be linked dynamically against
+# it.  I haven't done this for a number of reasons:
+#
+#  *  First, the only thing that would improve would be disk space, in that
+#     the executable files themselves would be smaller.  That's it.  Many other
+#     things would get worse if we used a dynamic library:
+#
+#  *  Complication of installation procedures: suddenly, before any of the
+#     hacks will work, you need to have a dynamic library installed, and
+#     the system configured to use it.  This is, basically, rocket science.
+#     Most people don't know how to do this, it's a huge pain, and on many
+#     systems, it requires root access.
+#
+#  *  Complication of the Makefile: every system builds dynamic libraries
+#     differently.  Every compiler takes different flags.  I don't want to
+#     do the hand-holding for the scores of Unix systems and compilers on 
+#     which people try to build this program.
+#
+#  *  Reduction of maintainability: gdb is remarkably bad at dealing with
+#     debug info in dynamic libraries, and when debugging a hack, one would
+#     constantly be fighting the linker and the debugger (or linking
+#     statically when debugging.)
+#
+#  *  Version skew: when things are statically linked, it's perfectly ok to
+#     make incompatible changes to the APIs defined in this directory, so long
+#     as the current version in ../hacks/ is in sync.  Much more care would 
+#     need to be taken with such things if dynamic libraries were involved,
+#     to make sure that the major and minor versions of the library changed
+#     at the appropriate time.  This isn't too hard, but it's more work, and
+#     yet another opportunity to screw up.
+#
+#  *  Runtime memory usage goes *up*.  That's right, up!  When a program
+#     links in a dynamic library, the whole library is brought into the 
+#     address space, not just the files that are actually used.  Normally,
+#     this is ok, because if several programs are using (for example)
+#     libX11.so, chances are that the savings outweighs the overhead.  But
+#     the nature of xscreensaver is that only one of the hacks ever runs at
+#     a time -- so there would never be a second program using the utils/
+#     dynamic library with which things could be shared.
+#
+#  *  Runtime speed decreases slightly, since dynamic code is marginally
+#     slower.  On modern machines, this probably doesn't make a perceptible
+#     difference, however.
+#
+# So basically, I just don't think using libraries would be a win, and it would
+# definitely cause more of a maintenance and portability headache.  However,
+# if someone else wants to do the work to make it be an option to configure,
+# and verifies that it works on several (more than three) different Unixes,
+# I'd be happy to take the patches.
+#                                                           -- jwz, 30-Jun-98
+#
+##############################################################################
+
+
 @SET_MAKE@
 .SUFFIXES:
 .SUFFIXES: .c .o