Re: Patch: Documenting tools necessary for GCC [take 2]

[Gerald Pfeifer <gerald at pfeifer dot com>]

On Fri, 6 Jun 2003, Kaveh R. Ghazi wrote:
> I've included the final patch below and installed it.

I know that's a couple of weeks ago, but the sheet with my review comments
just popped up on my TODO heap and I need to take a break from writing
some paper. ;-)

Thanks a lot for finally preparing such a nice list, which we had been
missing for so long!

> +@uref{prerequisites.html,,Prerequisites}

Perhaps prerequisites.html could become prereq.html, which is shorter?
(If you agree and make this changes, I will install a web forward for
the old URL.)

> +Necessary to bootstrap the GCC package, although versions of GCC prior
> +to 3.4 also allow bootstrapping with a traditional (K&R) C compiler.

"the GCC package" -> "GCC"?

> +To make all languages in a cross-compiler or other configuration where
> +3-stage bootstrap is not performed [...]

"make" -> "build"?

> +In order to build the Ada compiler (GNAT) you must already have GNAT
> +installed because portions of the Ada frontend are written in Ada (with
> +GNAT extensions.)

Is this American typography (and thus correct) or should the full stop
come after the closing parenthesis?

> +Refer to the Ada installation instructions for more
> +specific information.

How/where can the average user find/access these instructions?

> +target libraries.  In other cases, @command{/bin/sh} or even some
> +@command{ksh} have disastrous corner-case performance problems.

Omit "even some"?

> +So on some platforms @command{/bin/ksh} is sufficient, on others it
> +isn't.

"On some platforms, using...." and omit "on others..."?

> +See the host/target specific instructions for your platform
          ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

I think this should be a link....

> +Necessary in some circumstances, optional in others.  See the
> +host/target specific instructions for your platform for the exact
> +requirements.

...also here.

> +@item autoconf version 2.13 (NO earlier or later versions) and

"NO" -> "@emph{no}"

> +Necessary when modifying @file{configure.in}, @file{aclocal.m4}, etc.@:
> +to regenerate @file{configure} and @file{config.in} files

Full stop?

> +@item expect version ???
> +@itemx tcl version ???
> +@itemx dejagnu version ???

Would you mind dropping these here and, optionally, linking to the
testing part of this manual instead?

> +Necessary to run the @file{fixinc} @command{make check}.

"Necessary to run @command{make check} for @file{fixinc}."?

> +@item GNU Bison version 1.28 (or later)
> +Berkeley @command{yacc} (@command{byacc}) is also reported to work other
> +than for java.

"java" -> "GCJ" or "Java"

> +@item cvs version 1.10 (or later)
> +@itemx ssh (any version)

"CVS", "SSH"

> +@item perl version 5.6.1 (or later)

"Perl"

> +Necessary when regenerating something with intl??? (pod2man???)
> +Other stuff???

If nobody is filling this in, I suggest to remove it, so that it won't
sneak into one of our releases (and also because version is used to
generate the official version on the web).

> +@item GNU diffutils version 2.7 (or later)
> +
> +Necessary when creating changes to GCC source code to submit for review.

"Necessary when submitting patches for the GCC source code."  (It's also
needed when a maintainer installs changes, without review.)

Gerald