[llvm-dev] Please dogfood LLD

[Joerg Sonnenberger via llvm-dev]

On Mon, Mar 20, 2017 at 06:50:31PM -0400, Rafael Avila de Espindola via llvm-dev wrote:
> My reasoning was that if we did this, it would make it harder to get
> libtool changed. The change that libtool really needs is to have sane
> defaults: if it doesn't know the linker, there is a good chance it has
> gnu like command line options and supports shared libraries.

That's a really, really stupid assumption for a tool that primarily
exists for dealing with ancient systems. You can expect GNU ld or
compatible on the BSDs, Linux and GNUish Windows toolchains. OSX is
already different. Solaris, AIX and all the other commercial Unix
systems are very far from GNU ld compatible.

> What changed is that I realized that probably the best way to cleanup a
> project that is having problems with libtool is to stop using it. LLVM
> did that a long time ago and is not any less portable as a result.

Speaking with a pkgsrc hat on: libtool has its issues, but almost none
of the alternatives come anywhere near the portability for building
shared libraries on the various older (commercial) Unix-like systems.
Many of them even fail to properly support Solaris and that has at least
ELF. While you are certainly unlikely to care about those, I really
strongly dislike claims like this, because they are ignorant and false.

Joerg