You could have looked at the file size first. What if it had been 500sloc? Would you still have made the same comment? What is the point at which you'd absolutely insist on splitting it up if you were doing a code review? Surely 1.3ksloc is smaller than that. The commentary on splitting this up strikes me as so much bikeshedding.
I think, not to put words in his mouth, that he is objecting to the idea of single file libraries as inherently good or better than a multi-file library. I think the objection is more about future design choices the maintainer will make. If you want to keep it single file, it may be necessary to avoid adding some features which are too complex.
Complex features usually necessitate modularization, which is against the idea of the single file library. Modularization in c and c++ is very poor and based on having multiple files, some of which represent the interface and others that represent the implementation. I at least partly think this is his objection.
> > I've decided to write the whole µUBSan runtime as a single self-contained .c soure-code file, as it makes it easier for it to be reused by every interested party.
> I don't really get why people do this. Linking is one of the easiest and most broadly supported features of C environments on every platform.
Sure, this is true, and users already have to know how to link, unless they are #include'ing this, but still, a single file is much easier to share/distribute and use, and in any case, splitting up such a small file (by the standards of.. a number of open source projects I looked at, it's small) seems unnecessary.
I totally agree with you, I personally love single file implementations.
I was just trying to explain what I thought his argument was against them, since I don't think he really explicitly stated it outside of generally speaking of maintenance issues. He just said he would prefer to contribute patches to a project that had multiple files and a makefile based build system.
I was assuming his argument was about the future directions the project could go, which I can see as being a valid criticism. As I said the main issue with a single file implementation is that potential users may end up using parts of the implementation instead of just the public facing interface you would like them to use.
