[Bug target/81084] [8 Regression] powerpcspe port full of confusing configury / command-line options not related to SPE

["glaubitz at physik dot fu-berlin.de" <gcc-bugzilla at gcc dot gnu dot org>]

https://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=81084

--- Comment #36 from John Paul Adrian Glaubitz <glaubitz at physik dot fu-berlin.de> ---
(In reply to Jakub Jelinek from comment #33)
> Yes, but the port split was done in May last year, and nothing substantial
> happened since then.  Port maintainance is not about promises, but about
> doing the work.  If he does the work soon, the port can be de-obsoleted in
> GCC9, otherwise it will be removed, which doesn't mean it can't be added at
> some point later.  Of course, the later it will be done, the harder it will
> be.

He is working on it and people are using it. It's not surprising that it takes
longer than any work done by paid developers on the x86 or POWER targets.

> > > m68k needs some serious work, too, in the not far future (if the cc0 removal
> > > finally goes through -- that has been over ten years now).
> > 
> > Yes, I am aware of that. But there are enough people interested in such work
> > so I think we will be able get around doing that at some point.
> 
> Nobody did the work in the last 15+ years for m68k, it doesn't seem likely
> that all of sudden it will happen.  There have been numerous posts about
> what to do to get rid of cc0, e.g. in 2005 and several other years.
> See https://gcc.gnu.org/backends.html for details, a healthy port doesn't
> have
> c (cc0), p (not using define_peephole2), has a (uses LRA).  We can't
> maintain old reload, or cc0 support indefinitely.

I have been doing some research yesterday myself and couldn't find a page which
documents on how to write a port. I couldn't even find documentation on the cc0
stuff.

> > > A port does not need maintenance only for that port, and its users, but also
> > > for GCC itself.  All ports are a cost to _all_ GCC developers.  If a port is
> > > not maintained it has to be removed.
> > 
> > So, again my question is: What exactly is the with the powerpcspe target at
> > the moment and why does upstream claim the port is broken when it apparently
> > works for us in Debian? Am I missing something?
> 
> Have you read all the threads mentioned in
> https://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc/2018-04/msg00102.html
> and all the above comments?  All the details are in there.

Could you please just mention issue in question that causes trouble? The
messages directly linked only mention PR81084 but I haven't run into this issue
myself.

Again, could you please mention an urgent issue with the powerpcspe target that
causes serious issues for other users or developers? Thanks!