Viktor Szakáts wrote:
There are a few issue with Harbour 3rd party libs in general
(talking about open source ones for now):
1) Each has a different make system, which means each of them has
to be learned, built and locally maintained in a completely
different way.
2) These make systems and libs are often targeting only a small subset
of supported Harbour platforms.
And that is where we depart in general from what made Clipper the 3rd
party success it was. Those third parties could distribute a library.
Maybe two. We can't deal easily with precompiled code (libraries or
objects) unless those same third parties distribute those libraries for
multiple platforms and even perhaps multiple compilers. This raises the
bar significantly for entry to the third party banquet. Our original
goal was multiple compilers and multiple platforms. That has been
accomplished, but in this respect, it's our Achilles heel. And, worst of
all, we don't have 'the most popular compiler around', which is what
made third party developers desire to put in the work. I'm not saying
what we have is bad in any way. it's not. Harbour is vastly superior to
Clipper.
At the very least, we would need to maintain a published list of
compiler and target platforms so the large yet finite list is well
known. That would at least give a third party developer a target, even
if it is a huge one. I think it's a rather large problem.
This was perhaps the least understood trade off that we made with our
multiplatform multicompiler goal. Our goal was not bad, but look what
came with it.
I don't have the answer, just more things to ponder and some realities
to accept.
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