From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Ian Lance Taylor To: mark@codesourcery.com Cc: rth@cygnus.com, binutils@sourceware.cygnus.com Subject: Re: Patches for IRIX6 N32-ABI ld Date: Thu, 01 Jul 1999 00:00:00 -0000 Message-id: <19990627012218.14466.qmail@daffy.airs.com> References: <19990626192703.9669.qmail@daffy.airs.com> <19990626134622L.mitchell@codesourcery.com> <19990626204616.9890.qmail@daffy.airs.com> <19990626140924Q.mitchell@codesourcery.com> <19990626140924Q.mitchell@codesourcery.com> X-SW-Source: 1999-q2/msg00364.html From: Mark Mitchell Date: Sat, 26 Jun 1999 14:09:24 -0700 Ian> Why not have two macros, one for general SGI compatibility, Ian> namely the existing SGI_COMPAT, and one new one you can use Ian> to check just which sort of SGI compatibility you want for a Ian> particular BFD? Your suggestion is clearly equally expressive, so it's not like something can be done way and not the other. So, if you insist on doing things your way, it's not like we'll lose anything. I assumed this to be non-controversial, and used things like `SGI_COMPAT (abfd) == sct_irix6' throughout the rest of my patches. So, changing this will require a bunch of extra work for me. That's not a great argument, but it's accurate. Then do it the other way. Change all the existing uses to, e.g., SGI_IRIX_COMPAT (a trivial search and replace). Then use SGI_COMPAT when you need to decide the exact level of compatibility. I don't really care. But I agree with Richard: I don't want to see code that will silently fail if a new value is added to the start of an enum. Although I admit you wouldn't know it to look at the binutils, as far as I am concerned long term maintainability is the single most important characteristic of all code changes. I will pick maintainability over features every time. The code should not only work correctly, it should be written in a natural style, so that natural changes will not fail in an unnatural way. Sometimes that requires major patches when old code was done inappropriately or even badly; so it goes. Ian