Re: More C type errors by default for GCC 14

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>]

> From: Eric Gallager <egall@gwmail.gwu.edu>
> Date: Wed, 10 May 2023 06:40:54 -0400
> Cc: joel@rtems.org, David Edelsohn <dje.gcc@gmail.com>, Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>, 
> 	Jakub Jelinek <jakub@redhat.com>, Arsen Arsenović <arsen@aarsen.me>, 
> 	"gcc@gcc.gnu.org" <gcc@gcc.gnu.org>
> 
> Idea for a compromise: What if, instead of flipping the switch on all
> 3 of these at once, we staggered them so that each one becomes a
> default in a separate release? i.e., something like:
> 
> - GCC 14: -Werror=implicit-function-declaration gets added to the defaults
> - GCC 15: -Werror=implicit-int gets added to the defaults
> - GCC 16: -Werror=int-conversion gets added to the defaults
> 
> That would give people more time to catch up on a particular warning,
> rather than overwhelming them with a whole bunch all at once. Just an
> idea.

What do we tell those who cannot possibly "catch up", for whatever
valid reasons?  E.g., consider a program written many years ago, which
is safety-critical, and where making any changes requires so many
validations and verifications that it is simply impractical, and will
never be done.  Why would we want to break such programs?

And that is just one example of perfectly valid reasons for not
wanting or not being able to make changes to pacify GCC.

Once again, my bother is not about "villains" who don't want to get
their act together, my bother is about cases such as the one above,
where the developers simply have no practical choice.

And please don't tell me they should use an older GCC, because as
systems go forward and are upgraded, older GCC will not work anymore.