[Paraview] Linking Paraview with already installed libraries

[Francesco Poli]

On Wed, 4 Oct 2006 14:38:05 -0400 Berk Geveci wrote:

> We depend on specific version of VTK and TclTk. To avoid the headache
> of debugging version incompatibilities, we make it very hard to use
> anything but included version.

This seems to be a significant inconvenience for users, though.

What's the use of dynamic libraries ("shared objects"), if every
application ships with its own copy of the needed libraries?
It's unnecessary code duplication on the target system and makes Unix
systems go one step in the direction of a situation similar to the
so-called "DLL hell" (which is typically found in Windows systems).

I can understand recommending particular VTK and TclTk releases and
stating that any other combination is untested, but deliberately making
it hard to link against already installed libraries does not sound
right...


As an aside, I suspect that this is one of the reasons why nobody has
yet successfully packaged Paraview for inclusion in the official Debian
archive[1]: it's probably unacceptable not to link against libraries
(such as VTK and Tcl/Tk) that are already packaged for Debian, unless
there are very good reasons not to do so...

[1] despite the interest that some users have expressed for such a
package: there's an open RFP (Request For Package) bug about Paraview
<http://bugs.debian.org/304334>



-- 
But it is also tradition that times *must* and always
do change, my friend.   -- from _Coming to America_
..................................................... Francesco Poli .
 GnuPG key fpr == C979 F34B 27CE 5CD8 DC12  31B5 78F4 279B DD6D FCF4
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://public.kitware.com/pipermail/paraview/attachments/20061005/a812b93f/attachment.pgp