From: ggarramuno@... (GGarramuno)
Date: 2004-10-26T04:59:06+09:00
Subject: Re: ruby1.9 CVS Makefile issue?

>It needs to compile all objects with debug options, so I don't
>feel "debug" target so useful.  I would run configure with
>CFLAGS='-ggdb -g3 -O0' in another directory for such purpose

It is useful.  When you deal with several platforms, switches change subtly
between them and their compilers.  
For my line of work, it is often needed to test or debug things in linux,
windows, osx and sometimes even irix (albeit I am currently just doing work on
windows at home; evaluating all of the ruby issues before I deploy ruby fully
at a future job).
The above CFLAGS would result in nothing of use for windows and would likely
choke irix, too.
No sane person remembers them or even wants to learn them.  That's what
makefiles are for, imo (write the flags once, then quickly forget about them).

PS.  I've tracked the bug in latest zlib.  There's a simple NULL pointer being
indexed on gzipwriter's flush due to an incorrect len check in a previous
function.