[Haskell-cafe] use of -Werror

[Brandon Allbery]

On Tue, Jul 1, 2014 at 9:20 PM, Ivan Lazar Miljenovic <
ivan.miljenovic at gmail.com> wrote:

> Why does cabal-install twiddle flags though?
>
> Surely if I say "default: False" that means "don't set this to True
> unless you actually want it".  Having an extra "Manual" field seems
> like duplication.
>

Not exactly. You use it to specify which alternative to try first; and the
reason it's trying alternatives is so that it can adapt to different
platforms: dependency versions (e.g. the old split-base flag), Unix vs.
Windows, etc.

Controlling which one is tried first may be necessary to ensure it doesn't
accidentally match something that appears to work but is less correct or
appropriate than the alternative. For example, using an older library setup
may work in installations that have both old and new libraries, but trying
the new one first is likely to have e.g. performance or compatibility
benefits.

-- 
brandon s allbery kf8nh                               sine nomine associates
allbery.b at gmail.com                                  ballbery at sinenomine.net
unix, openafs, kerberos, infrastructure, xmonad        http://sinenomine.net
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