Re: Header cleanliness [was: removing the 'make install'-->'makeall'dependency]

[Alexander Malmberg]

Nicola Pero wrote:
[snip]
> > * A header must be self-contained.
> 
> Yes.
> 
> > * A header should include as few other headers as possible. Use @class
> > instead.
> 
> Yes.
> 
> I mean, very good habits ... at least for the core libraries. :-)
> 
> Very good habits ... hmmm .... maybe not for all.  If you are not worried
> about compilation speed but need to cut down development time, or if you
> have precompiled framework/library headers, for example, you may just want
> to do
> 
> #include <Foundation/Foundation.h>
> #include <AppKit/AppKit.h>
> 
> this definitely doesn't follow your rules :-) it compiles slowly on
> GNUstep, yet it can be acceptable if you don't care about compilation
> speed.

True, and a person using GNUstep libraries should be free to make that
decision. However, (since I have a slow system :( ), compilation speed
matters to me. Anyway, I think the decision should be left to users of
the libraries. It means extra work for us (as library developers), but
that's ok; as library developers, we're supposed to do extra work so our
users don't have to :).

It should be noted that most GNUstep headers already follow this to a
large extent. I just want to make sure this is what we want so I can fix
the remaining places. :)

> If we get precompiled headers on GNU, that might become the preferred
> solution even to cut down compilation time, because usually you will have
> a precompiled version of Foundation/Foundation.h and of AppKit/AppKit.h,
> while you will not have precompiled versions of the specific Foundation/*,
> AppKit/* headers if you include them separately.

Why not?

- Alexander Malmberg