> Also I believe not allowing new languages for new front-ends might
> limit the increase of language front-ends in the GNU Compiler
> Collection:
I think "not allowing" is too strong a characterization of my previous
message. I have neither the inclination or the power to do that on my
own. I do however feel extra caution is in order...
> Wether C++, Java or Ada, a new language requirement looks the same to
> me: having a good enough base compiler and runtime installed for the
> language, I do not see anything special to Java or Ada over C++ here.
The issue for me is not C++ vs Java vs Ada. The issue is writing the
language frontend in the same language it parses so that it depends on
itself to bootstrap.
If we wrote the G++ FE in java and the java FE in C that would satisfy
my concern just as well as the reverse of writing java FE in C++ and
the G++ FE in C. Either way we can get from start to finish with only
a C compiler to start with.
However with Tom's proposal, we need an existing java compiler for our
target. This same requirement for Ada has caused lots of confusion.
(Which prior versions of Ada work? Does our configure infrastructure
handle everything correctly?)
Looking at the testsuite results, many of the people who don't bother
to compile Ada do currently compile and test java. I suspect if we
make it harder to boot/test java then we'll see it's testing and
support decline.
--Kaveh
--
Kaveh R. Ghazi [EMAIL PROTECTED]
