On 01/20/2015 08:11 AM, Michael Matz wrote:
Hi,
On Tue, 20 Jan 2015, Uros Bizjak wrote:
At least, IA-32 is clear, although IA-64 may be confusing :-). FWIW,
i386 is also vendor specific.
Wikipedia agrees [1]:
I wouldn't use a wikipedia article that only cites sources from after 2008
(and most of them actually after the after-the-fact invention of "ia32")
for an architecture that exists since 1985 as sensible source for
supporting either point of view ;-) It totally lacks references to
config.guess which IMHO is a much better source of "how to call an
architecture" :)
I brought up the Wikipedia names in my initial query because I presume
the Wikipedians have already fought the battle over what color to paint
this particular bikeshed. :-)
FWIW, I was employed at Intel back in the 2001-2003 timeframe and my
vague recollection was that it was during that time that they started
promoting "IA-32" as the official name for the 32-bit x86 architecture,
as a branding thing to better promote their own "IA-64" architecture as
its 64-bit successor rather than AMD's "x86-64". So certainly a lot of
the confusion arises because the 32-bit x86 architecture was around
under other names long before Intel re-named it.
Since there seems to be arguments against using both "IA-32" and "i386"
for the 32-bit x86 architecture, how about, uh, "32-bit x86"? With the
other names in parentheses where appropriate? I think we could also
ignore the 16-bit x86 variants for the purposes of GCC and just use
"x86" instead of "i386 and x86-64".
Anyway, I've said the things I had to say, crouching back under my stone
:)
Likewise going back to hiding under my lilypad. :-)
-Sandra
