Subject: Re: Mr Taylor surely understands ld: a correction to my previous post
From: [email-masked] (Ian Lance Taylor)

27 Mar 1997 08:17:37 -0800
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In cygnus.gnu-win32 [email-masked] writes:

[ Various complaints about modularity and the like which I am not
  going to address.  Different people can reasonably have different
  opinions on these issues.  ]

>I still remain convinced that only Steve can fix this. It is a pity that he
>is gone. This means that this problem will remain as it is in the foreseeable
>future.

I just couldn't let this comment pass, though.  Steve is a great guy,
and a friend, but he is not the only person who can work on the
linker.  In fact, when we did the last major overhaul of the linker,
implementing the interface documented in bfd/linker.c, he designed it,
but I wrote it.  I understand the linker as well as he does.

In fact, the notion that only one person can work on a particular
program is nonsense.  I've never seen a useful program that I could
not understand and modify, if I was willing to take the time.  (This
is not meant as a challenge!)

Whether whatever Windows linker problem there may be will be fixed is
a different issue.  Steve used Windows, and wrote the original
gnu-win32 library, and cared about making the linker do the right
thing under Windows.  I don't use Windows, and although I would be
happy to help anybody fix any possible problems of the linker under
Windows insofar as I am able, I'm not likely to do anything about it
myself.  I have no idea what Cygnus's plans are in regards to the
linker under Windows.  I have no idea whether there really are any
linker problems, or how serious they are if they exist.

Ian
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