On Sun, Nov 8, 2009 at 10:13 PM, Gerald Pfeifer <ger...@pfeifer.com> wrote: > On Sun, 8 Nov 2009, Joern Rennecke wrote: >> With a plugin, the developer can simply point the user at the place where >> he can download the plugin for his current version, and we can get quick >> feedback on the usefulness of the new optimization. > > Except that, based on what Richard and Basile discussed, you may need > a different (binary) plugin for different minor versions of GCC (and, > possibly, different vendor versions of GCC). > > All of which terribly reminds me of the painful (for end users, ISVs, > IHVs, OSVs,...) situation we have with the Linux kernel and out-of-tree > modules.
Correct. As I said - if there are specific kinds of out-of-tree plugins then GCC should implement (properly) a high-level abstraction to support them. In a way that would at least provide ABI compatibility within a stable release. Not something I see anyone working ok and certainly the thing the FSF didn't what to have in the first place. I hope a new pass manager will be designed with that in mind - even if it will not provide a binary ABI but instead a stable scripting interface. Richard.
