[MPlayer-dev-eng] --enable-svga

[The Wanderer]

Enrico Weigelt wrote:

> * The Wanderer <inverseparadox at comcast.net> [2003-12-29 21:36:57 -0500]:
> 
> <snip>
> 
>> When you say "--enable-foo", configure assumes that you know what
>> you're doing and doesn't check. For (almost?) everything which has
>> an autodetection method, the default is to autodetect, therefore
>> it's assumed that if the user specifies to enable they don't want 
>> autodetection thinking it knows better than they do and turning it
>> off anyway.
> 
> hmm, would be better to have several level of automatic:

This has been discussed fairly recently on (IIRC) this list, between
Richard and someone whose name I forget who was advocating auto* and
similar. Go look in the archives if you want to see the arguments - I
for one have no desire to see the whole mess again so soon.

> a) --try-enable-foo
> 
>     ==> to autodetection. (default)

Useless, because it *is* the default. If something isn't autodetected by
default, then either no one's come up with a way to autodetect it or
it's believed to not be worth compiling in; if the user disagrees,
that's what --enable is for.

> b) --enable-foo
> 
>     ==> explicitly enable/disable some feature, but argue if
>         something  seems to be missing/corruot

How can it tell if the thing is missing or corrupt? This would
essentially be a slightly different form of autodetection, and hence
seems to me to be a little redundant. In the current system, if
something seems to be missing or corrupt upon autodetection, it disables
it and reports the fact - and the user can check configure.log, or if
necessary configure itself, to try to diagnose the reason. It's not that
complicated.

> c) --force-enable-foo
> 
>     ==> really enforce this feature - no matter what comes - go
>         through  until the bitter end.

Already present as --enable.

As best I can tell all your two additional suggestions do, aside from
being counterintuitive as far as the MPlayer main developers are
apparently concerned, is add an alternate form of autodetection and make
the names of the configure options overly complicated. Neither of these
is particularly helpful.

-- 
       The Wanderer

A government exists to serve its citizens, not to control them.