On 4/4/12, Richard Guenther <richard.guent...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Apr 4, 2012 Bernd Schmidt <ber...@codesourcery.com> wrote: > > On 04/04/2012 11:06 AM, Richard Guenther wrote: > > > So - I'll veto the switch unless I see 1) and 2). 1) and 2) > > > can be combined by transitioning vec.h to a C++ template class, > > > with proper GC support. (not sure that I can veto anything > > > - heh) > > > > I don't think I can veto anything, but I'll go on the record > > again saying that I don't think this entire plan is a good > > idea. Write a new project in C++? Absolutely. Convert a large > > existing one to a different language? A huge waste of time that > > will distract us for years from actual user-visible changes. > > I agree for the idea of converting all of GCC to C++ (whatever > that means). I disagree for the part making the internal > infrastructure easier to use, understand and maintain. Which > means targeting mostly isolated sub-systems, like vec.h (and > other various containers), double-int.[ch] (and other various > way of representing and working with constants). Making tree > or gimple a C++ class with inheritance and whatever is indeed > a huge waste of time and existing developer ressources (that, > if only because they have to adapt and maintain two completely > different code-bases over some time).
Trees are presently a significant problem in that many static errors become dynamic errors, which entails more debugging. > I expect the GCC core to maintain written in C, compiled by C++. Converting VECs to C++ vectors vector would provide significant code clarity benefits. The files in which that is done would necessarily be C++ only. > > I also find debugging C++ in gdb somewhat more annoying than > > debugging plain C, and at the moment I always go back to a > > stage1 compiler. > > Indeed - I'd be worried if my debugging efficiency decreases by > more than 5%. If the number of debugging sessions was reduced by the same amount, the result would be a net wash. -- Lawrence Crowl
