OPTLINK needs to die.

[Jarrett Billingsley]

On Mon, Feb 16, 2009 at 8:19 PM, Tim M <a at b.com> wrote:
> On Tue, 17 Feb 2009 13:27:14 +1300, Jarrett Billingsley
> <jarrett.billingsley at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> That's it -- I'm finished.  I'm tired of constantly rearranging code
>> to appease OPTLINK and its outdated object format.
>>
>> This is, for me, the number one blocker of most of my more complex
>> code on Windows.  More than any DMD bug.  Tom S can vouch for it too,
>> and Eldar sounds like he s about to give up on D after dealing with
>> OPTLINK's crashes.
>>
>> OpenWatcom is not an option.  It seems to be buggy with regards to
>> weak symbols.  Furthermore its documentation is sparse at best and its
>> option syntax is completely different from OPTLINK's.
>>
>> I *do not care* how fast OPTLINK is.  I *do not care* how many hours
>> of hand-coded assembly went into it.  I want a linker that *works*,
>> and preferably one that doesn't use an object format that *no other
>> modern compilers use*.
>>
>> Please do not underestimate the importance of this, Walter.  OMF and
>> OPTLINK will continue to be a thorn in DMD's side unless you do
>> something about it now.
>
>
> Just checking you are aware of objconv which can be found here
> http://www.agner.org/optimize/.

I'd rather not have to add in an _object conversion_ step to my build
process.  And I wouldn't want to have to force users of my libraries
to do so either.