From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Richard Stallman To: craig@jcb-sc.com Cc: mjbedy@mtu.edu, gcc@gcc.gnu.org, craig@jcb-sc.com Subject: Re: type based aliasing again Date: Thu, 30 Sep 1999 18:02:00 -0000 Message-ID: <199909170624.CAA19870@psilocin.gnu.org> References: <19990915212407.16268.qmail@deer> X-SW-Source: 1999-09n/msg00749.html Message-ID: <19990930180200.dNKZ89ZW0bUrWi2-2WxJukwDtLHewfPTQonvzugz4ms@z> And the whole point some people (like RMS) have been trying to make is that we should *not* think of this as a "feature". If it's not a feature, then backwards compatibility is not an issue. Backwards compatibility in the sense that applies to features is not an issue here, because we never advertised as a feature that those code constructs would work. But supporting the important programs that have such code in them is an important practical goal. It is worth a certain amount of effort, and since we have found a way to do the job fairly easily, we should do it.