[pjc50]

Software architecture is harder than it looks. Where's your alternative tidier solution?

I agree that libtool is ugly, but it lets you build on different systems with different management that are immune to harmonisation. The sound mess is similar: people refusing to give up their own ideas on what constitutes a good solution. We don't have a magic wand to make people reach consensus. The best we've managed is Jobsian totalitarianism, and even that doesn't always produce the right answer.

[akkartik]

I'm working on a very radical but very speculative answer: replace compatibility guarantees with tests, try to be harmonious by making it much easier to make changes to code one didn't write. More info: http://akkartik.name/about. But it's likely to be wrong, and even if it isn't, it'll take the rest of my life to convince myself and maybe others.