From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 11588 invoked by alias); 5 Mar 2003 19:10:14 -0000 Mailing-List: contact gcc-help@gcc.gnu.org; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: Sender: gcc-owner@gcc.gnu.org Received: (qmail 11581 invoked from network); 5 Mar 2003 19:10:13 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO mail-out1.apple.com) (17.254.0.52) by 172.16.49.205 with SMTP; 5 Mar 2003 19:10:13 -0000 Received: from mailgate2.apple.com (A17-129-100-225.apple.com [17.129.100.225]) by mail-out1.apple.com (8.12.7/8.12.7) with ESMTP id h25JADYv016886 for ; Wed, 5 Mar 2003 11:10:13 -0800 (PST) Received: from scv3.apple.com (scv3.apple.com) by mailgate2.apple.com (Content Technologies SMTPRS 4.2.1) with ESMTP id ; Wed, 5 Mar 2003 11:10:02 -0800 Received: from apple.com (mrs1.apple.com [17.201.24.248]) by scv3.apple.com (8.11.3/8.11.3) with ESMTP id h25JA2f02899; Wed, 5 Mar 2003 11:10:02 -0800 (PST) Date: Wed, 05 Mar 2003 19:18:00 -0000 Subject: Re: Putting C++ code into gcc front end Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v551) Cc: Zack Weinberg , dewar@gnat.com (Robert Dewar), gcc@gcc.gnu.org, tromey@redhat.com To: Gabriel Dos Reis From: Mike Stump In-Reply-To: Message-Id: <103CBF6A-4F3E-11D7-A309-003065A77310@apple.com> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-SW-Source: 2003-03/txt/msg00346.txt.bz2 On Tuesday, March 4, 2003, at 11:16 PM, Gabriel Dos Reis wrote: > Zack Weinberg writes: > | | C++ compilers and runtime libraries that implement the full > language > | as it was standardized are still rare. Compilers that implement a > | language called "C++" that is incompatible with standard C++ are > still > | common. > > I think that is too negative to reflect reality. As do I. g++ can be ported to almost any machine that needs to have C++, or already has been. g++ put simply, is widely available. It is usually no less widely available than gcc. You can take a poll, but I suspect you'll find that 99.99% of our users _can_ use gcc/g++ to compile gcc. Now, the question is how much pain and suffering should the other 0.01% cause us, the FSF answer is, they exist at our pleasure. You may have a different opinion. Also, we tend to focus on distributors more than end-users, and distributors I don't think are put off by having to have gcc/g++ to build. Most users tend to take up the compiler with binary packages, in this case, the issue is very moot, as it is the same exact command to them either way. The most major impact for them would be, we would need a stable libstdc++.so that won't break and cause the compilers to become non-functional.