[M3devel] HEADS UP: cm3.cfg locations, was: Re: problems with cm3.cfg and MxConfig

[Jay K]

> That is exactly the mad scientist whill want when he's tinkering with
> deviant Modula 3 compilers. But it's not what the average user will
> want. And it's not what the mad compiler tinkerer will want when he's
> just compiling ordinary programs. So let an environment variable
> override whatever else would be used to find the configuration file.
> And leave it undefined for the average user.

 
I have been a proponent of what you say.
And I have tried to achieve it.
 

However it is not clear if I got there.
 

The system-wide library paths, one example,
are what the "(mad) Linux tinkerer" might
alter,  once and be done, not merely the
"compiler tinkerer". There may be too many such people.
 

Even for the mad tinkerer to have his own
system-wide gcc might be common?
Again, more of a "once and be done" mode,
not often changing?
 

The config files ultimately don't even that much.
The previous authors did factor them fairly well.
Just not /quite/ enough to my taste. :)
I think primarly it was due to the times.
There was more variety back then perhaps, and fewer
cases of the same compiler (gcc) being on multiple
systems or the same kernels being on multiple processors.
 

For example, Solaris.common would not have made sense, there was just 32bit SPARC.
For example, Linux.common would not have made sense, there was just x86.
FreeBSD/OpenBSD/NetBSD all fairly young too.
 
 
Ultimately I gather..and I haven't gotten here yet,
but ultimately I think the tinkering escapes to chroot,
whereupon from our point of view it ceases being tinkering.
The contents of the files might change but the the names
are restored to normal. :)
 

As well though, the mad tinkerer is root?
And is ok editing text files outside of /etc?
 
 

 - Jay