windres: -fo

[Dimitrie O. Paun]

On Tue, 22 Apr 2003, Christopher Faylor wrote:

> Sorry but this one I do have a problem with.  You're essentially adding
> a two character option ('fo') which is introduced by a single '-'
> ('-fo').  While consistency is nice, I don't think we should be
> completely breaking convention to achieve it.

Indeed, it is ugly, I have to admit. Unfortunately, we have the following
situation in Makefiles:
  -- we need to control output filename, we can't always use the default.
  -- rc's only way of specifying the filename if through the -fo option

Now, if we don't support that, we need to add ugly ifdefs in the Makefiles
to support the two versions. Way uglier than -fo, and non-portable.

This is not a matter of consistency only, but of compatibility. We break
convention in gcc (-pedantic, etc.) and other places for compatibility,
and that is not necessarily a bad thing.

Convention is important, and I wish there was a way to not break it, but
compatibility is at least as important. I think supporting -fo will lead
to overall lower ugliness.

-- 
Dimi.