On 07 March 2007 16:16, Paulo J. Matos wrote:
> On 3/7/07, Paul Brook <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> On Wednesday 07 March 2007 14:30, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>>> Is it time to offer "second-strap" level of compilation? Ie allow C99 to
>>> bootstrap the creation of a basic GCC compiler, then allow a second
>>> compile using the basic GCC compiler to get the full compiler.
>>
>> Maybe, but I consider rejecting mixed code/declarations to be a feature :-)
>
> Well, I'm curious to hear more about that... Why do you think that...
> int i;
> ...
> ...
> for(i = 0; i < n; i++) ..
>
> is better than
> for(int i = 0; i < ..) ... ???
As explained: because it makes it impossible for users running old systems
with pre-C99 compilers to build gcc and thereby excludes them from the world
of free software, which is the opposite of what we're trying to achieve.
> Their value lies (at least for me) in things line
> if (foo) // now I'll do...
> {
>
> }
>
> and for example
> struct foo {
> int myint ; // this int is ...
> double mydouble ; // this double is...
> };
The benefit of saving three keypresses is outweighed (for the FSF's goals)
by the disadvantage of excluding a whole category of potential
users/contributors.
> in a one line comments, using /* */ is just horrid! :)
That's a purely religious opinion!
You might find it interesting to browse the gnu coding standards
(http://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/) and the additional standards specific to
gcc (http://gcc.gnu.org/codingconventions.html), since much of what we have
discussed is explained there along with the rationale that justifies the
decisions.
Things won't stay like this forever, and at some point we'll undoubtedly
decide that it's no longer necessary to stay backwardly compatible all that
far back, and start using C99 features (and beyond that, we may at sometime
start using C++ in the compiler core). It's a purely practical matter of
ensuring gcc is accessible to the greatest possible number of people.
cheers,
DaveK
--
Can't think of a witty .sigline today....
