Re: Target-specific Front-Ends? (Was: front end changes for altivec)

[Ziemowit Laski <zlaski@apple.com>]

On Tuesday, November 27, 2001, at 02:40 , Bernd Schmidt wrote:

>> No -- YOU DON'T have to make sure these patches don't break.  THAT is 
>> the
>> responsibility solely of the authors/users of the patch in question.
>
> It sounded like you suggested the patch would be applied automatically
> during the build.  In that case, the patch would have to be uptodate to
> prevent a build failure.

The patch could be applied either (1) automatically for certain target
triplets or (2) only when an explicit flag is passed to 'configure'.
(Come to think of it, the latter is preferrable since it makes the
whole process explicit).  But the bottom line is: extension user
beware! :)

> If you don't make it the C frontend maintainer's responsibility to keep
> them working, you'll end up with fourty-two non-working extensions 
> pretty
> quick.

To which I say -- fine!  (At the same time, I realize it is precisely
this that most of you are objecting to :) :) )

If you have a non-working extension, it simply means it has fallen into
disuse (you could even nuke it out of the tree if you want).  And as
long as there are users, they will have to see to it that it is
maintained.

--------------------------------------------------------------
Ziemowit Laski                   Apple Computer, Inc.
zlaski@apple.com                 2 Infinite Loop, MS 302-4SN
+1.408.974.6229  Fax .1344       Cupertino, CA  95014-2085