Re: GCC 3.1 Release

[Geoff Keating <geoffk@geoffk.org>]

Mark Mitchell <mark@codesourcery.com> writes:

> As should be clear at this point, there is no way that we are going
> to be shipping GCC 3.1 on Monday.
> 
> The amount of breakage since GCC 3.0 continues to amaze me.
> 
> We still have about 30 open bugs that we need to try to resolve
> for this release.
> 
> To that end, I'm as of now slipping the GCC 3.1 release date by two
> weeks, until May 1st.

Hi Mark,

Can you say roughly what proportion of the problems (in your
subjective judgement, 'percentage of reason why I delayed the
release') were:

1 Problems visible on x86-linux but not visible to the regression testsuite?
2 Problems visible only on non-free platforms (eg. solaris, AIX, cygwin)?
3 Problems visible on non-x86 free platforms (eg. alpha)?
4 Problems introduced by previous fixes made to the branch? 

[At the time the branch was cut, the testsuite was pretty much 0
failures on x86-linux, so 'failures on x86-linux visible to the
regression testsuite' is not a category.]

The solutions that would work for these are different.  (1) means we
need a better regression testsuite.  (2) and (3) mean we need
more/better testing, perhaps an expanded regression tester, or to drop
some platforms---it may be that, say, Irix is just too hard to do
unless more volunteers can be found who are willing to maintain it.
(4) means we need better moderation and regression testing of the
branch, perhaps requiring that a patch be tested for regressions on
all the important platforms before it is committed; we do something
like that at Red Hat for our general-use native releases.

-- 
- Geoffrey Keating <geoffk@geoffk.org> <geoffk@redhat.com>
[Who is happy that he has two more weeks to try to get at least some
of the PCH branch stuff into the mainline.]