On Wed, 25 May 2005, Theodore Papadopoulo wrote: | All that being said, I do not know why this C++ transition should be | blocked by libstdc++ ABI stability. Given the history the GCC project | and the amount of work (and the expected benefits) that would arise just | from converting to a simple subset of C++ (class,some simple inheritance | and maybe simple templates and no library stuff), I would argue that a | lot of benefit could be gained already just with core C++ (ie without | the library).
The project I'm proposing is not to move to C++. Just to move to the intersection of C and C++, which is what we had agreed on in previous discussions. Someone needs to implement those decisions, that is what I'm trying to do (of course, anyone who can help is welcome). Then, whether GCC should actually use C++, simple overloading, super inheritance and hyper though template hackery is completely separate issue. We may have those discussions but if we're not actually in any way to be able to test the conjectures, then the whole discussion is pointless. The benefits to move to that intersection are obvious. When the time comes to actually introduce C++ in GCC, we could have the discussion of what to freeze. As you may or may not have noticed, libstdc++ people are trying hard to keep the ABI stable. It also has its own downsides -- there are bugs that we cannot fix and they are known and implemented improvements we cannot benefit from. -- Gaby
