On Thu, Jan 23, 2014 at 12:49 PM, Eric S. Raymond <e...@thyrsus.com> wrote:
>> Maybe nobody bothers because using clang is easier than to fight with >> FSF policies. > > Which is pretty close if not identical to my original point. Your original point came across as a complaint that GCC does not support plugins because of some FSF policy, despite GCC supporting plugins because of the Runtime Exception that I championed. > The clearest possible statement of this is in Chandler Carruth's talk > "Clang: Defending C++ from Murphy's Million Monkeys" (all over > YouTube) in which he explains "why we set out to build another C++ > compiler" by beginning with this question posted to the gcc list: "is > there are reason for not making the [GCC] front ends dynamic > libraries which could be linked by any program that wants to parse > source code?" GCC is working toward re-factoring its code base toward a more compositional approach for "toolification". One can look at presentations from the recent GNU Cauldron 2013 for discussion of the topic. David Malcolm also has created patches for the GCC backend to be used as a JIT. The assertions that FSF policy prevents technical development and innovation simply is not true. Clang/LLVM has technical advantages and GCC has technical advantages. > More of the same will not serve. GCC is in near-term danger of losing > its dominance in open-source C development; I would say the danger is > imminent if not that people are innately conservative about major changes > to their toolchains. The other shoe will drop when a major Linux distribution > ships with clang as its default compiler; I could easily see this happening > before the end of 2015, followed by a cascade of me-too defections. Your comments presume that the choice is because of technical merit or philosophy impeding technical development. The issue for companies is control: which compiler allows them better access / control over the toolchain control point of the ecosystem and which allows them to create a walled garden to improve their margins and their business model. If developers and engineers want to cherry-pick technical anecdotes that support the business decision, it makes it easier for the company to implement its policy, but it does not change the direction of the business decision. - David
