[GRASS5] Want GNU libavl ?

[Glynn Clements]

Frank Warmerdam wrote:

> > We could talk about this for ever, but it can only be put to the test 
> > when a developer comes up with a specific proposal with genuine merit 
> > for  including or writing a component in C++ (or other language).
> 
> I hardly want to be a proponent of "C++ ification" of GRASS; however, I
> would like to see the GRASS build system attempt to identify a C++ compiler
> that can be used (normally just g++ of course) and to support building C++
> modules.
> 
> For the time being I think we should avoid using C++ in libraries but I
> think we should open up the option of some programs being in C++.
> 
> For r.in.gdal I have used a C "wrapper" api over GDAL which is internal
> a bunch of C++ classes.

That makes the library available to programs written in C, but it
still suffers from the problem that any precompiled libgdal will only
work on systems which have exactly the right version of libstdc++
(using the same version of libc, built with the same major compiler
version).

The net result is that a user who obtains a binary distribution won't
get a working version of r.in.gdal. They would need to independently
obtain a version of libgdal which was built for their specific
platform, or build it themself from source.

As you can probably guess, I'm personally against any use of C++ in
either libraries or programs; even to the extent that I would view
re-writing libgdal in C as a worthwhile use of developer time.

-- 
Glynn Clements <glynn.clements at virgin.net>