From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 7401 invoked by alias); 19 Jan 2004 22:29:54 -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 7386 invoked from network); 19 Jan 2004 22:29:51 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO kraid.nerim.net) (62.4.16.101) by sources.redhat.com with SMTP; 19 Jan 2004 22:29:51 -0000 Received: from tetto.gentiane.org (espie.gentiane.org [62.212.102.210]) by kraid.nerim.net (Postfix) with ESMTP id C104E418E0 for ; Mon, 19 Jan 2004 23:29:32 +0100 (CET) Received: from tetto.gentiane.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by tetto.gentiane.org (8.12.9/8.12.1) with ESMTP id i0JMSslM013740 for ; Mon, 19 Jan 2004 23:29:09 +0100 (CET) Received: (from espie@localhost) by tetto.gentiane.org (8.12.9/8.12.1/Submit) id i0JMSlLG001729 for gcc@gcc.gnu.org; Mon, 19 Jan 2004 23:28:47 +0100 (CET) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 22:29:00 -0000 From: Marc Espie To: gcc@gcc.gnu.org Subject: Re: gcc 3.5 integration branch proposal Message-ID: <20040119222845.GA26266@tetto.gentiane.org> Reply-To: espie@nerim.net References: <90200277-4301-11D8-BDBD-000A95B1F520@apple.com> <200401192207.58846.ebotcazou@libertysurf.fr> <1074546942.11041.8.camel@dzur.sfbay.redhat.com> <200401192246.52526.ebotcazou@libertysurf.fr> <1074550095.28477.35.camel@pc> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <1074550095.28477.35.camel@pc> User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.1i X-SW-Source: 2004-01/txt/msg01397.txt.bz2 On Mon, Jan 19, 2004 at 11:08:15PM +0100, Laurent GUERBY wrote: > BTW, people with old machines always have the choice of staying with old > software too. Not really. Not when you want to compile similar stuff on a wide range of machine. It's not as if you have a choice of `small optimizations, fast compiler, correct compiler'. Staying with gcc 2.95 comes with the price of being completely unable to even compile standard C++ code. Maybe what we're doing with the OpenBSD project is somewhat unusual ? but we've found out in the past that each new compiler has its share of arch-dependent and arch-independent bug. There comes a point where you prefer to have one single compiler, because that way at least, you have to cope with just one set of arch-independent bugs. Right now, we're probably going to end with both gcc 2.95.3 and gcc 3.3.2 active on different architectures at the same time, and the price in terms of maintenance is steep. Maybe most of you are actually working for companies, and so don't really care about the toll in terms of human costs ? I mean, sure, hire a new programmer, or buy a new $2000 machine. But real hobbyists ? We don't really have ways to hire new people. And a new $2000 machine means less network cards or gfx cards to play with and port drivers to. That's part of the price of having a strongly coupled front-end and back-end, I guess. So, old architectures will stop when/if we switch to a slower GCC. In such a case `keeping old software' == dead architecture. Thoroughly. I wouldn't even dream of still running OpenBSD 3.1 today, judging by the number of bugs we've fixed since then, and since the focus of OpenBSD is still on security...