From: Jonathan Wakely <jwakely.gcc@gmail.com>
To: "gcc@gcc.gnu.org" <gcc@gcc.gnu.org>
Subject: Re: passing command-line arguments, still
Date: Mon, 21 Mar 2022 10:21:45 +0000 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <CAH6eHdQwssXF=BzKn1cMQpw7e2Cf-6t9g2W80XvphD_TQZgtrw@mail.gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20220319131029.49490fb71bf0bbaae4c598bf@schemamania.org>
On Sat, 19 Mar 2022 at 17:10, James K. Lowden wrote:
> > > 3. The "f" stands for "flag", meaning on/off.
> >
> > It does stand for "flag", and it looks like at some point in ancient
> > history if was on/off, but then came options like -falign-loops=N.
>
> IME, someone made a mistake in the past, and that mistake is now
> becoming mistaken for a standard. I don't mind living with some cruft
> -- it's not as though gcc is unique in that regard -- but at the same
> time I see no reason to vernerate it or perpetuate it.
>
> In plain words, if we recognize that -f indicates an on/off switch,
> let's use it that way, deprecate those that don't, and not add new -f
> options that take arguments.
Why should the historical convention that hasn't been true for years
win over the current one that is in wide usage?
Trying to revert to some idealised point in history will just cause
pain and break things now. It's better to just accept that the
original meaning mutated and "on/off flag" is no longer true.
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2022-03-21 10:21 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 10+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2022-03-16 18:34 James K. Lowden
2022-03-16 18:45 ` Marek Polacek
2022-03-17 16:21 ` James K. Lowden
2022-03-17 17:39 ` Jonathan Wakely
2022-03-19 17:10 ` James K. Lowden
2022-03-19 17:53 ` David Edelsohn
2022-03-21 10:19 ` Jonathan Wakely
2022-03-21 10:21 ` Jonathan Wakely [this message]
2022-03-17 18:37 ` Joseph Myers
2022-03-17 19:16 ` Marek Polacek
Reply instructions:
You may reply publicly to this message via plain-text email
using any one of the following methods:
* Save the following mbox file, import it into your mail client,
and reply-to-all from there: mbox
Avoid top-posting and favor interleaved quoting:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style
* Reply using the --to, --cc, and --in-reply-to
switches of git-send-email(1):
git send-email \
--in-reply-to='CAH6eHdQwssXF=BzKn1cMQpw7e2Cf-6t9g2W80XvphD_TQZgtrw@mail.gmail.com' \
--to=jwakely.gcc@gmail.com \
--cc=gcc@gcc.gnu.org \
/path/to/YOUR_REPLY
https://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-send-email.html
* If your mail client supports setting the In-Reply-To header
via mailto: links, try the mailto: link
Be sure your reply has a Subject: header at the top and a blank line
before the message body.
This is a public inbox, see mirroring instructions
for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox;
as well as URLs for read-only IMAP folder(s) and NNTP newsgroup(s).