From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
From: Joe Buck <jbuck@synopsys.com>
To: mschaefer@dsai.com
Cc: cogen@ll.mit.edu, egcs@cygnus.com
Subject: Re: error message formatting
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 23:03:00 -0000
Message-id: <199804160335.UAA09372@atrus.synopsys.com>
References: <98Apr15.140343mdt.26885@colorado.dsai.com>
X-SW-Source: 1998-04/msg00617.html

[ long error messages ]

> 	Unfortunately, this is mainly due to the structure of the STL.  Because
> it is so template based, you're going to get those long lines.

Well, it's possible to shorten the lines in several ways, or to break them
("pretty-print"), or to try to use typedefs, etc.

> 	Basically, if you want simplicity, STL is probably not the way to go.

I disagree: use of the STL can have a big payoff in terms of simplicity
(unless you get carried away and try to do complex functional programming
with function objects and adaptors -- such programs are hard to read and
maintain, it seems to me).

It is up to the egcs team as compiler implementers to figure out ways of
making decent error messages for STL code.

STL also puts stress on the name mangler; one approach is to claim that
it is an inevitable consequence of the STL, but there are more productive
approaches, such as the new -fsquangle in the snapshots.