On Mon, Apr 19, 2010 at 10:50:48AM +0200, Richard Guenther wrote: > On Mon, Apr 19, 2010 at 7:04 AM, Basile Starynkevitch > <bas...@starynkevitch.net> wrote: > > Mark Mitchell wrote: > >> > >> The Free Software Foundation and the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) > >> development team have released GCC 4.5.0. [...] > > > > > > It is really unfortunate the annoucement did not mention plugins, another > > major feature of GCC. Why ? > > I see plugins as a new feature for GCC developers. There is little > value in announcing "we have plugin support" to our users if > you can't name at least one that is supported out-of-the-box
I respectfully but strongly disagree with that statement. There is a lot of value in announcing we have plugin support, because that simple fact enable GCC users (at least those who use GCC to compile code there are contributing to develop) to develop their simple plugins or ask somebody else to develop plugins for them. This makes a major difference for the few power users needing extra features in their GCC Compiler (previously, the only way was to fork their own private branch, a much larger and fragile effort than developping a plugin, with the tremendous burden that users of such a branch have to build it by their own). > (and obviously we don't support plugins at all). I also disagree with and even don't understand that sentence. GCC 4.5 does support plugins (since plugins exist in 4.5 but not in previous releases), and I am sure that several companies selling GCC support will be delighted to be suitably paid to develop plugins. Besides, GCC users have a pecularity. Since they are using a compiler (obviously GCC), they understand better than others what software source code is, and probably what software development means. So there are more chances that some GCC power users would want to develop a plugin. Of course, plugins development from outside the GCC community will increase very progressively. But plugin is a *major* feature of 4.5, [in my eyes] as important as link-time-optimization. > > How would you have announced the plugin parts to GCC users? I am not a native english speaker, but something like the following paragraph [to be added after the paragraph: GCC 4.5.0 is now capable of "link-time optimization". ... and equally significant reductions in code size.] GCC 4.5.0 accept plugins (on some host systems, in particular Linux, if configured appropriately). This permits advanced users to customize or extend their GCC compiler with specific code provided in plugins enabling extra features -such as new specific optimization or diagnostic passes, etc.- suitable for their particular needs. Plugins should be GPLv3 compatible. Also, in practice, at least in the Linux and some embedded software worlds, new releases of GCC diffuse very slowly... So it is ok if some power users just start developping their plugin now. Cheers. -- Basile STARYNKEVITCH http://starynkevitch.net/Basile/ email: basile<at>starynkevitch<dot>net mobile: +33 6 8501 2359 8, rue de la Faiencerie, 92340 Bourg La Reine, France *** opinions {are only mines, sont seulement les miennes} ***
