On Fri, May 25, 2012 at 8:57 AM, Michael Matz <m...@suse.de> wrote: > Hi, > > On Fri, 25 May 2012, Steven Bosscher wrote: > >> >> Note also the almost 2 decades of C++ style practice in our libstdc++ >> >> implementation. >> > >> > That's one of my fears, namely that those used to the libstdc++ style >> > impose that on the compiler source base. Because IMHO the libstdc++ >> > style isn't very appealing. >> >> Neither is the GNU C style, but we use it anyway. > > IMHO it is. > >> IMHO it'd be very strange to use one style in gcc itself, and another in >> libstdc++. > > We already have a style for GCC, which is different from libstdc++. And > mixing two styles _within_ one project source base (for the moment > thinking about GCC and libstdc++ as two different projects) would be even > worse.
The existing style for GCC made sense when gcc was originally designed with a deliberate flavour of writing Lisp in C. However, after 25 years, the codebase has a distinctively different flavour -- one that isn't Lispy anymore. While adopting a new implementation language, it makes sense to revisit and revise the style. It also makse sense to look at existing C++ style within the GCC project. That isn't "imposing" by any stretch of imagination or hyperbole. It would be dismaying if we just kept the old lispy style just because grand'pa did it that way in C. -- Gaby
