From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Per Bothner To: Ziemowit Laski Cc: Ira Ruben , Stan Shebs , gcc@gcc.gnu.org Subject: Re: Target-specific Front-Ends? (Was: front end changes for altivec) Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2001 18:27:00 -0000 Message-ID: <3C044BAD.9070708@bothner.com> References: <755E7B73-E3A4-11D5-AE62-0030658361CA@apple.com> X-SW-Source: 2001-11/msg01454.html Message-ID: <20011127182700.jKZxb0Vjrl_BHjrrjSDQp82FrYZWHzLvze_IIQKfxE0@z> Ziemowit Laski wrote: > > On Tuesday, November 27, 2001, at 05:36 , Per Bothner wrote: > >> Why would we want to put into our compiler a TARGET-SPECIFIC syntactic >> extension to handle the rather generic concept of a fixed-size >> vector? And why >> would we want to add a configure mechanism to do that? > > Two words: LEGACY CODE. I know of no GNU or otherwise Free or open-source software that uses these extensions. So the problem of legacy code is not a GNU problem. Of course we want gcc to be generally useful, but it cannot be all things to all people. People who have code that uses these extensions can use a legacy compiler. Or they can pay somebody (Apple or Red Hat, for example) to maintain a compiler that supports the legacy code. Their legacy code is not our problem - but it will be our problem if we accept a kludgy extension into our sources. > Well, we do have a local tree, and it is a royal pain to maintain in sync > with the FSF, as Stan can attest. :) In making my proposal, I assumed > (perhaps wrongly) that a lot of other organizations are in the same > boat -- > i.e., they have local modifications that they wouldn't mind putting into > the FSF I'm sure a lot of companies are in the same boat. That is their problem. In principle we encourage them to merge in local modifications *if* they are clean and generally useful. Even more, we encourage people to think about merging and design and discussing features with the gcc maintainers *before* they start implementing. --Per Bothner