Re: INSTALL: Grammar advice?

On Thu, Oct 31, 2019 at 11:23 AM Julian Foad <julianfoad_at_apache.org> wrote:

> Nathan Hartman wrote:
> > In INSTALL, there is this awkward use of (optionally):
> >
> > The Netwide Assembler (NASM) is used to build the (optionally)
> > assembler modules of OpenSSL.
> >
> > Which of these is the best fix?
>
> To be blunt: these instructions need a lot more fixing than just grammar.
>

I noticed that; especially the section about building on Windows,
which I intend to basically rewrite simultaneously while setting up my
Windows build environment. I can't build on Windows at the moment and
it's on my to-do list to set aside a block of time to solve that and
update INSTALL based on what I learn.

But I digress...

> NASM isn't mentioned anywhere in our source tree except here and in
> tools/dev/build-svn-deps-win.pl so probably the right fix is to delete
> this item from INSTALL and perhaps update the comments in
> tools/dev/build-svn-deps-win.pl .
>

NASM isn't mentioned in our source tree because it isn't needed to
build our code.

INSTALL documents it as an optional dependency of a dependency
(OpenSSL).

I wouldn't rush to remove it because I think it's a good thing to have
a list of dependencies (a dependency tree? -- within reason), partly
because one of my pet peeves is trying to build something and then
discovering more and more dependencies along the way. It's nice to
know what I'll need at the outset.

Now, if OpenSSL no longer has this as an optional dependency, then I
agree that it should be removed. I'm looking into it...

Thanks for your input.

Nathan
Received on 2019-10-31 16:40:03 CET