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[parent not found: <1044318563.708.247.camel@steven>]
* RE: GCC 3.3, GCC 3.4
@ 2003-02-04  0:31 Steven Bosscher
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 118+ messages in thread
From: Steven Bosscher @ 2003-02-04  0:31 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: gcc

[ Yuck, I'm a spammer according to the mail server :-/ ]
Scott Robert Ladd wrote:
> Mark Mitchell wrote:
> > As soon as they implement one feature so that it mostly works,
> > they are off to implement another, often due to constraints from
> >  management.  As a result, they don't have time to fix bugs, even
> >  bugs in the work they just did.  We often get many of the
> >  regressions out, but a few hard ones linger.
>
> (snip)
>
> > We have nobody that can fill that supervisory role.  It is
> > simply not possible; the players have very divergent interests.
> 
> The above is a serious threat to the success of free software.
> The lack ofcoherent cooperation is more troublesome than any
> worries about whether a certain OS should be called "Linux" or
> "GNU/Linux".

That's not entirely true really.

Yes, the number of regressions has been growing lately because everybody
had his/her pet project.  (I have said before that there were too many
branches).  Right now most of these projects are being merged or have
already been merged. The only really seriously hugely different active
branch is the tree-ssa branch, and only three or four people are
focusing on that branch.

That means that you would expect to see people fixing bugs now.  I don't
believe that people push in half-finished features from branches and
then move on to the next project.  If "management" wanted the features
to be merged, it's probably in their interest that they actually work,
too.

In addition to that, there are important areas of common interest.  For
example, compiler speed.  This is now a "focal point": The "players" all
have the same interest here, so it's more than likely that it will be
fixed one way or another.

(Let's just hope that no new branches with major work like that show up
for a while... That too is in everybody's interest IMHO.)

> A reliable, functional gcc is critical to the success of free
> software; it is the foundation upon which the other packages
> rest. Somehow, we need to impress this upon the commercial
> vendors who fund development. Freedom exists because of
> cooperation; if the developers of gcc do not cooperate, free
> software will not succeed in the long run.

Let's not over-dramatize here.  Fact is that GCC right now is better
than ever before, just slower but like I said, that's something that can
and will be fixed, *because* it's in everybody's interest.

> > In some other free software projects, people do fill that
> >  supervisory role.  Linus is the ultimate authority for Linux,
> > for example.  We have a different structure.
> 
> Linux can be rather chaotic, even with Linus' influence. True,
> he controls the definitive distribution -- but there are many
> side branches and unique versions for each distro. Remember the
> fracas over the Linux VM? Is it possible that FSF gcc should
> define a core gcc, with possible branches for vendor specific
> variants?

Linu[sx] has a completely different management style.   The FSF does not
like forks and separate source trees at all. Linus *encourages* forks! 
Anyone can take bits and pieces from eachothers tree because there's no
copyright assignment to, say. Linus.  So this wouldn't work for GCC.

Also, linux has far more independent subsystems (archs, file systems,
etc). and people can hack on their favorite part pretty much independent
of each other.
GCC is a single big system from the middle end to assembly, and even the
front ends are not entirely separate.  So the linux model doesn't work
for GCC.

Therefore I would think that it is in the vendors' interest that there's
only one GCC.

Greetz
Steven


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 118+ messages in thread
[parent not found: <200301312121.QAA22864@makai.watson.ibm.com>]
* Re: GCC 3.3, GCC 3.4
@ 2003-02-02  6:17 Brad Lucier
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 118+ messages in thread
From: Brad Lucier @ 2003-02-02  6:17 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: matz; +Cc: Brad Lucier, gcc

Michael:

I, and I presume many other people, have a great deal of interest in
the new register allocator, both for its promise and for the evidence
so far of its capabilities.

My understanding from previous messages on this list is that the new ra
would be included in 3.3 but not supported; support would begin in 3.4.
(By support, I mean that if someone finds bugs in it then the intention
is that those bugs will be fixed.)

David Edelsohn indicated that other people are prepared to help with
the new ra.  I hope that some way will be found to organize the work
so that the new ra will be ready for 3.4.

Brad

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 118+ messages in thread
[parent not found: <20030131165429.32d4d907.bkoz@redhat.com>]
[parent not found: <200301312258.OAA14911@emf.net>]
* Re: GCC 3.3, GCC 3.4
@ 2003-01-31 16:29 Richard Kenner
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 118+ messages in thread
From: Richard Kenner @ 2003-01-31 16:29 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: lord; +Cc: gcc

    The SC ought to, both directly and through a RM, stop inciting
    volunteerism for commerical purposes.  Volunteerism is for the
    benefit of the volunteers and for the benefit of society as a whole.

I'm not sure what you mean by the first part of this.  Obviously, volunteers
are important to the GCC development process and should be encouraged,
but if you look at GCC's history, the vast majority of work on GCC has
been done by companies that have a commercial interest in it.  Are you
really trying to *discourage* that work? 

    For years, before there was commercial interest in GCC, there was no
    pressure for release schedules that would accomodate the needs of
    Apple, IBM, Red Hat or others.  There should not be now.  

True to the most part, in that no one company's release schedule should
dominate GCC development, but if we want the continued support of these
companies, we do have to keep their collective neds (including schedules)
in mind.

    It is _wrong_ for calls to change volunteer focus to bug-fixing to
    keep things "on schedule" in a context where the schedule is, in
    effect, imposed to accomodate the vendors.

No, that's not the case.  Our work has no benefit to *anybody* is we don't
release it and frequent releases mean our work gets out to the user community
faster.  It is unfortunately the case that one of the serious problems 
with "volunteerism" is that volunteers mostly want to do "fun" work, which
means hacking away and adding new optimizations.  It's not fun to do the
testing and bug-fixing, but that part is even more important than the
other development work since few will use a compiler that doesn't work.

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 118+ messages in thread
* Re: GCC 3.3, GCC 3.4
@ 2003-01-31  5:15 Wolfgang Bangerth
  2003-01-31 10:39 ` Mike Stump
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 118+ messages in thread
From: Wolfgang Bangerth @ 2003-01-31  5:15 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: gcc; +Cc: Benjamin Kosnik


Benjamin Kosnik writes:
> > Would you please volunteer to run the tests and extract PRs for GNATs?
>
> Sorry, but no. I don't have the time to do this well. I think that Janis
> (and the rest of the regression hunters, bangerth in particular) are
> really doing a good job along these lines for mainline: they should be
> encouraged to continue efforts on the release branch.

Well, thanks for the kind words. I'm trying my best by building our 
library every night in the hope that this will catch regressions as soon 
as possible (about 50 of my PRs come from this library). 

Alas,
- I can't get mainline to compile the lib since about mid-December, due to
  a changing set of regressions.
- I can't build with 3.3 either since about the same time due to a 
  regression introduced by Kriang and not fixed for a month or so (I think 
  he just sent the patch today).

I'd like to test more, but this prevents me from it. The inability to 
compile the lib also means that I have no clue whether middle- and 
back-end changes introduced in the meantime (in particular the 
basic-improvements branch) had any adverse effects. 

Wolfgang

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wolfgang Bangerth             email:            bangerth@ticam.utexas.edu
                              www: http://www.ticam.utexas.edu/~bangerth/



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 118+ messages in thread
* Re: GCC 3.3, GCC 3.4
@ 2003-01-31  0:37 Benjamin Kosnik
  2003-01-31  0:52 ` Zack Weinberg
                   ` (5 more replies)
  0 siblings, 6 replies; 118+ messages in thread
From: Benjamin Kosnik @ 2003-01-31  0:37 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: gcc; +Cc: mark


>Feel free to suggest a better one!

Perhaps updating this would help this discussion:
http://gcc.gnu.org/develop.html#future

Shipping GCC 3.3.0 on March 1 will require enormous effort. 

I guess I'm more concerned about the timing on the gcc-3.4.0 effort.
From the above link, I cannot tell when it's supposed to be released.

Anyway. I guess I'm just really leery of releases a la 3.1.0. That
release was pushed back into the summer, when students are out of
school, people are on vacation, etc. 

It would seem to me that gcc-3.4, optimally, should be starting to enter
phase three around October. That's after Europe is back from break, and
students around the world are back on it.

Just a thought.

> I do not think this is not an issue for 3.3; no ABI breakage is supposed
> to occur there as far as I know.

Well, me too. However, I expected the SC to show more leadership on this
issue. I'm disappointed by the current lack of policy. Matt had brought
up this issue when the quick, "oops" 3.2.0 release was made. Now I
see the wisdom of his comments.

I've versioned the runtimes assuming that 3.3 will not break the 3.2
ABI, and that 3.4 will. Lacking clear guidance on what to do, I think
this was an ok decision.

I'd prefer a better process though.

> On the compiler side, I don't think there's much point in changing the
> ABI until we can get 100% compliant.  (The ways in which we're wrong
> don't really affect users, and the fewer times we change the better.)

Sounds good. I'd prefer to not break the runtime ABI unless I knew wide
io worked. That effort is just starting. There are issues with the
current runtime ABI, that can be gleaned from the versioning patches of
last week.


>> 2) Any kind of ABI testing. I don't think the Intel ABI tester is
>>  sufficient.

> This is a hard problem and one I'm very familar with.

> This is a problem we have had since forever with G++, and it is better
> than it has been.

I don't see how.

> There's more I'd like to say, but I can't.  Hopefully soon.

This continues to annoy me, but I understand why you do it. The longer
you say this line, the less I believe there's anything to say.

> If you have suggestions, I'm sure they'd be very welcome!

My suggestion: somebody develop a GPL'd, FSF copyright (negotiable) ABI
testsuite. Both EDG and Codesourcery have them, the rest of us should too.

I continue to believe that proprietary testsuites are just as evil as
proprietary compilers and runtimes.


> Would you please volunteer to run the tests and extract PRs for GNATs?

Sorry, but no. I don't have the time to do this well. I think that Janis
(and the rest of the regression hunters, bangerth in particular) are
really doing a good job along these lines for mainline: they should be
encouraged to continue efforts on the release branch.

I think the longer gcc, as a project, goes on without an autobuild
continuous regression checker, the worse off things will get. It was
nice of Red Hat to initially support this effort, but it is obvious that
this time is past as the regression checker is long dead. Somebody else
will have to step up with the bandwidth, time, and machine to do this.

Some of these frustrations are with the development process, and have
nothing to do with you or the SC. Please keep in mind that I have the
utmost respect for both you and the SC.

best,
benjamin

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 118+ messages in thread
* Re: GCC 3.3, GCC 3.4
@ 2003-01-30 23:53 Karel Gardas
  2003-01-31  0:13 ` Mike Stump
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 118+ messages in thread
From: Karel Gardas @ 2003-01-30 23:53 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: GCC Mailing List


Guys,

allow me just one question. As a gcc user badly affected by slow c++
compilation and as a result not using gcc/g++ for any other development, I
really would like to see such patches somewhere. So my question is: where
and when they'll appear in some of gcc branches? Or are they just
available for download for 'brave' g++ user who can give them a try?

Thanks a lot,

Karel


On Thursday, January 30, 2003, at 11:03 AM, Mark Mitchell wrote:

     Well, Mike just checked in a patch that provides a 33% speedup. On the
     head, I've checked in several patches that improve performance by several
     percent, and have more in the works. Nathan is working on a patch to
     remove exponential (no, not just quadratic, exponential) behavior in the
     C++ front end that has been there since *forever* -- probably 2.7.2.

   Sigh, I have a patch that gives a 10x improvement on compile speed...
It makes template programming, fast. I think it rises up to the top of
work to get into the tree next, I think... The change is to ditch the
linked lists from the specializations, instantiations and mangling code.


--
Karel Gardas                  kgardas@objectsecurity.com
ObjectSecurity Ltd.           http://www.objectsecurity.com


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 118+ messages in thread
* Re: GCC 3.3, GCC 3.4
@ 2003-01-30 20:00 Benjamin Kosnik
  2003-01-30 21:29 ` Mark Mitchell
                   ` (2 more replies)
  0 siblings, 3 replies; 118+ messages in thread
From: Benjamin Kosnik @ 2003-01-30 20:00 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: gcc


I think your proposed schedule is highly unrealistic.

What concerns me, however, is that here has been no attempt, by either
the RM or the Steering Committee, to address the problems with the 3.1.x
and subsequent 3.2.x release process. 

These include, but are not limited to:

1) Some kind of planned ABI breakage. When? How is it tested? Putting
this off to the last minute might be ok for the compiler, but I no
longer think this is acceptable, in practice, for the C++ runtime.
Versioning the runtime is non-trivial. 

2) Any kind of ABI testing. I don't think the Intel ABI tester is sufficient.

3) Any kind of attempt at compile-time regressions or compile time
performance at all. Dropping the release criteria, or ignoring the
release criteria that deals with compile time performance is unacceptable.
Sane defaults in the garbage collector would be a big win here.

4) Deficiencies in the testing plan. For gcc-3.0.0, Peter Schmidt did a
wonderful job of keeping the rest of the developers in the know about
how key software packages were performing when compiled with the
soon-to-be-released compiler. A return to actually testing the software
packages that are in the release criteria, and not shipping until they
pass, would be welcome.

-benjamin

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 118+ messages in thread
* GCC 3.3, GCC 3.4
@ 2003-01-30 11:22 Mark Mitchell
  2003-01-30 19:07 ` Mike Stump
  2003-01-30 19:20 ` Matt Austern
  0 siblings, 2 replies; 118+ messages in thread
From: Mark Mitchell @ 2003-01-30 11:22 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: gcc


I've been not doing as good a job as RM as I should have, and for that
I apologize to all of you.

I've cleared the decks to some extent and will be focusing more on
these tasks in the days and weeks ahead.

I would like to release GCC 3.3 on March 1.  Therefore, I expect to
completely freeze the compiler on February 22, which gives us a bit
less than a month to fix up the regressions that apply there.  I think
that Feb 15th is clearly too optimistic at this stage, and I will be a
taking two days of vacation on the 13th and 14th, which makes the 15th
a particularly unfortunate time.

I'd like to enter stage 2 for GCC 3.4 two weeks after the release
actually occurs.  I know that we normally allow a month, but I think
stage 1 has already brought in a lot of changes, and I think another
45 days should be enough to get enough new bugs, ahem, features,
checked in to keep us busy through the GCC 3.4 release cycle.

I'll start banging on GCC 3.3 regressions, and encouraging others to
do the same.

Thanks,

--
Mark Mitchell                   mark@codesourcery.com
CodeSourcery, LLC               http://www.codesourcery.com

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 118+ messages in thread

end of thread, other threads:[~2003-02-06 19:26 UTC | newest]

Thread overview: 118+ messages (download: mbox.gz / follow: Atom feed)
-- links below jump to the message on this page --
     [not found] <1043976898.27601.ezmlm@gcc.gnu.org>
2003-02-03 19:50 ` GCC 3.3, GCC 3.4 Tim Josling
2003-02-03 21:54   ` Devang Patel
2003-02-03 22:32     ` Geoff Keating
2003-02-03 22:40       ` GC overhead (Re: GCC 3.3, GCC 3.4) Matt Austern
2003-02-03 22:53         ` Matt Austern
2003-02-04  1:14         ` Ziemowit Laski
2003-02-04 20:17     ` GCC 3.3, GCC 3.4 Tim Josling
2003-02-04 20:47       ` Matt Austern
2003-02-06 19:26         ` Tim Josling
2003-02-04  0:05   ` Tim Hollebeek
2003-02-04 20:07     ` Tim Josling
2003-02-04  2:03   ` Richard Henderson
2003-02-04  2:26     ` Zack Weinberg
2003-02-04  4:14     ` Daniel Berlin
     [not found] <1044318563.708.247.camel@steven>
2003-02-04  1:13 ` Scott Robert Ladd
2003-02-04  0:31 Steven Bosscher
     [not found] <200301312121.QAA22864@makai.watson.ibm.com>
2003-02-03 20:44 ` Tom Tromey
2003-02-03 21:02   ` Benjamin Kosnik
2003-02-03 21:10     ` Mark Mitchell
2003-02-03 21:31       ` David Edelsohn
2003-02-03 21:53         ` Mark Mitchell
2003-02-03 22:16           ` Scott Robert Ladd
2003-02-03 22:30             ` Jack Lloyd
2003-02-04  1:21               ` Scott Robert Ladd
2003-02-03 22:03         ` Scott Robert Ladd
2003-02-03 21:45       ` Benjamin Kosnik
2003-02-03 21:56         ` Mark Mitchell
2003-02-03 22:34       ` Tom Tromey
2003-02-03 23:03         ` David Edelsohn
2003-02-03 21:17     ` Gabriel Dos Reis
2003-02-03 21:29       ` Mark Mitchell
2003-02-03 21:41         ` David Edelsohn
2003-02-03 21:42         ` Gabriel Dos Reis
  -- strict thread matches above, loose matches on Subject: below --
2003-02-02  6:17 Brad Lucier
     [not found] <20030131165429.32d4d907.bkoz@redhat.com>
2003-02-01  1:32 ` Mark Mitchell
2003-02-01  1:43   ` Jan Hubicka
     [not found] <200301312258.OAA14911@emf.net>
2003-02-01  0:00 ` Mike Stump
2003-01-31 16:29 Richard Kenner
2003-01-31  5:15 Wolfgang Bangerth
2003-01-31 10:39 ` Mike Stump
2003-01-31 17:54   ` Wolfgang Bangerth
2003-01-31  0:37 Benjamin Kosnik
2003-01-31  0:52 ` Zack Weinberg
2003-01-31  1:16   ` Gabriel Dos Reis
2003-01-31  1:34     ` Zack Weinberg
2003-01-31 17:53       ` Mark Mitchell
2003-01-31  1:14 ` Gabriel Dos Reis
2003-01-31  1:25   ` Benjamin Kosnik
2003-01-31  1:27 ` Gerald Pfeifer
2003-01-31  1:52   ` Benjamin Kosnik
2003-01-31 20:59   ` Joe Buck
2003-01-31 22:44     ` Tom Tromey
2003-01-31  6:09 ` Joe Buck
2003-01-31  7:39   ` Zack Weinberg
2003-01-31 20:43   ` Geoff Keating
     [not found]   ` <200301312127.QAA22861@caip.rutgers.edu>
     [not found]     ` <jmy9516lsd.fsf@desire.geoffk.org>
2003-02-01  4:32       ` Kaveh R. Ghazi
2003-01-31 11:52 ` Tom Lord
2003-01-31 20:52   ` Joe Buck
     [not found]     ` <200301312311.PAA15835@emf.net>
2003-02-01  1:28       ` Joe Buck
2003-02-01  1:49         ` Michel LESPINASSE
2003-01-31 21:07   ` Mike Stump
2003-01-31 13:50 ` Joseph S. Myers
2003-01-31 18:02   ` Mark Mitchell
2003-01-31 19:05     ` Devang Patel
2003-01-31 20:05       ` Mark Mitchell
2003-01-31 20:37         ` Graham Stott
2003-01-31 20:57         ` Devang Patel
2003-01-31 21:35           ` Tom Tromey
2003-01-31 21:02       ` Joseph S. Myers
2003-01-31 21:13         ` Joel Sherrill
2003-01-31 21:21         ` Devang Patel
2003-01-31 22:59           ` Joel Sherrill
2003-01-31 23:42             ` Devang Patel
2003-01-31 19:44     ` Matt Austern
2003-01-31 20:23       ` Mark Mitchell
2003-02-01  0:21         ` Michael Matz
2003-02-01  3:18           ` David Edelsohn
2003-01-31 20:31     ` Richard Henderson
2003-01-31 22:59     ` Andreas Jaeger
2003-01-31 23:12   ` Phil Edwards
2003-01-30 23:53 Karel Gardas
2003-01-31  0:13 ` Mike Stump
2003-01-30 20:00 Benjamin Kosnik
2003-01-30 21:29 ` Mark Mitchell
2003-01-30 21:42   ` Mike Stump
2003-01-31 13:31     ` Nathan Sidwell
2003-01-30 22:15 ` Joseph S. Myers
2003-01-30 22:56 ` Neil Booth
2003-01-30 22:58   ` Michael S. Zick
2003-01-30 23:22     ` Michael Matz
2003-01-30 23:25       ` Michael S. Zick
2003-01-31 11:16       ` Bernd Jendrissek
2003-01-30 23:55   ` Mike Stump
2003-01-31  0:11     ` Paolo Carlini
2003-01-31  0:15     ` Neil Booth
2003-01-31  0:29       ` Phil Edwards
2003-01-31  0:30         ` Neil Booth
2003-01-31  2:08           ` Mike Stump
2003-01-31 16:01             ` Michael S. Zick
2003-01-31  0:41       ` Mike Stump
2003-01-31  0:17     ` Benjamin Kosnik
2003-01-31  0:21       ` Neil Booth
2003-01-31  0:25         ` Matt Austern
2003-01-31  1:10           ` Benjamin Kosnik
2003-01-31  1:22             ` Gabriel Dos Reis
2003-01-31  1:55         ` Mike Stump
2003-01-31  1:54       ` Mike Stump
2003-01-31  2:40       ` Geoff Keating
2003-01-31 12:54         ` Richard Earnshaw
2003-01-31 20:22           ` Geoff Keating
2003-01-30 11:22 Mark Mitchell
2003-01-30 19:07 ` Mike Stump
2003-01-30 19:58   ` Mark Mitchell
2003-01-30 20:15     ` Mike Stump
2003-01-30 20:59       ` Mark Mitchell
2003-01-30 19:20 ` Matt Austern
2003-01-30 19:52   ` Mark Mitchell
2003-01-30 20:11     ` David Edelsohn

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