I guess the argument is that on occasion in the future a certain number of people will misinterpret the meaning of PETSC_ARCH frustrating them and us; the number misinterpreting PETSC_CONF will be much smaller or zero saving people's time and energy. Barry On Nov 30, 2009, at 3:25 PM, Matthew Knepley wrote:

I see the point, but this is one of the oldest parts of PETSc, and I am hesitant to change one arbitrary name to another without a more convincing reason.

Matt

On Mon, Nov 30, 2009 at 2:17 PM, Barry Smith <[email protected]> wrote:

Lisandro has pointed out to me several times that the variable name PETSC_ARCH can be confusing; some people may think it is related to the architecture of the machine and don't understand that it is an arbitrary name that the user can make up. He suggested changing it to PETSC_CONF to be clearer.

Should we change it? Use something else?

Barry

-- What most experimenters take for granted before they begin their experiments is infinitely more interesting than any results to which their experiments lead. -- Norbert Wiener