Re: Fixing -pthreads (Re: ports and -current)

On Wednesday 24 September 2003 23:11, Daniel Eischen wrote:
> On Wed, 24 Sep 2003, John Baldwin wrote:
> > On 23-Sep-2003 Dan Naumov wrote:
> > > On Tue, 2003-09-23 at 23:25, Dan Naumov wrote:
> > >> On Tue, 2003-09-23 at 23:13, Daniel Eischen wrote:
> > >> > I understand that folks want to wave their hands and say "just make
> > >> > -pthread work and do whatever it needs to".
> > >>
> > >> I am one of those folks as well. As an end-user, I am not interested
> > >> in hacking around the source of 3rd-party applications that use
> > >> -pthread when compiling them from source myself. Not in the slightest.
> > >> This is BAD BAD BAD for usability.
> > >>
> > >> Sincerely,
> > >> Dan Naumov
> > >
> > > I also believe that a question has to be asked, what do the -core and
> > > -arch people think of all this ? I think that they should have the
> > > final say in the matter.
> >
> > I think having a magic option to gcc that translates to 'link with the
> > foo library' is rediculous.  What's next, a gcc -math to get the math
> > functions in libm?  The fact that functions live in libraries and that
> > to get access to said functions you link with said libraries has been
> > the practice on Un*x for longer than I've been alive.  Please, people,
> > let the -pthread hack die and just use -l<mumble thread library>.
> > I think any FreeBSD-specific -pthread bits should just be removed
> > and have the compiler complain about a bogus option.  If gcc chooses
> > to have a machine independent -pthread (or -thread) to turn on TLS or
> > some such, that's great and all, but that would be gcc code, not
> > FreeBSD-specific code.
>
> Where were you a few days ago!

I definitly agree with Dan, -pthread is too ugly, it really really is
nothing to do with compiler and should be removed. If someone thinks -pthread
should be kept, then think about Microsoft, you are doing Microsoft way and
cause lots of trouble when I am programmming on Windows, Microsoft has two 
version of c library, threaded library and non-threaded library, it need a 
compiler flag -MT to link a thread library, then lots of library conflict
with this flag at linking time because some were compiled with -MT some were
not, this is rather annoying. This is a bit OT, but I hope we can avoid such
decision bug. Many software use autoconf, autconf prefers -lpthread than 
-pthread, it even prefers -lc_r then -pthread (if I remembered it right ).
if system has a libpthread there, it will generate Makefile to use -lpthread
not -pthread, obviously -pthread is not suggested to use.
One word, just let -pthread die.

David Xu