[oops, accidentally sent the message before I'd finished it...] Ralf Hinze writes:
I like Andres' proposal. It puts some burden on the compiler writers (but this work has to be invested only once) and considerably simplifies things for the library writers.
Putting the burden on the compiler writers is exactly what we want to avoid - us compiler writers tend to be too busy writing compilers! Instead, what I would like to see is a separate library infrastructure that smooths over the differences between systems and compilers, and provides something that library writers can just plug their library sources into. I don't think we need to (or indeed, should) go as far as specifying installation locations, or extra tools that compilers should provide. All this should be embodied in the library infrastructure, which is written once and maintained by a single group of individuals. Cheers, Simon