Re: .la files, again

[Michael Schwendt <bugs michael gmx net>]

On Tue, 29 Mar 2005 09:47:17 -0600, Rex Dieter wrote:

> > Should we simply keep every .la files, even in core ? 
> 
> No way hosay.
> 
> >If we delete them only to save
> > space, then maybe it's a good example of "premature optimization". Do we
> > have an example of something breaking because the .la files were included ?
> 
> It's not space savings you're after by omitting .la files (they are 
> relatively small).  It is dependancy bloat, *especially* for 
> /usr/lib/lib*.la files in -devel packages.

And not only that. Similar to pkg-config templates, the bigger a libtool
archive definition file gets, the more likely it introduces errors and
becomes a hindrance. E.g. when it inserts lots of standard library search
paths into the linker's command-line, this prevents you from customising
the linker's search path, when you want to link against custom-made
libraries in non-standard locations.