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Comment by nomel | Hacker News Reader

I can't compile my code until a downstream library compiles their code. They can't compile their code until a downstream library, they depend on, compiles their code. It all has to happen before any of it can happen. It eventually will, but we'll have to be patient, as is always the case with global changes.

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Sometimes you can just raise a PR and provide an arm build. I did this recently with a lisp library I use.

If the library is open source, you can be the person who does that :)

Or you could feed your kids. A small team can not maintain that much and if it is not your core business you should probably not try.

How is a library you depend on not your core business? If they don't support things you want, then this sounds like your problem.

The SSL library is nobody's core business, yet every business depends on it. Most libraries are just infrastructure, way down, that we build stuff on. Core business has a specific meaning:

> the business activity that is main source of a company's profits and success

Maintaining libraries is not the core business of those that use those libraries, most of the time. That's why people use libraries.

This is it an either/or: you can find the problem libraries and submit the work back upstream so you don’t have to maintain it. Then, for the upstream that don’t cooperate, fork temporarily until you find an alternative.

To their point, all of this is not trivial. You could just compile as x86 and be done with in in 5 minutes, assuming the performance hit is acceptable.

It’s not trivial, but it’s also not a long-term maintenance cost if upstream accepts the patch.

> long-term maintenance cost if upstream accepts the patch

When they said "maintain", I read it as short term, doing this if and when for all libraries down the dependency chain. Or, compile as x86, and wait until external resources push for the support.

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