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Re: `--syntax-only' after error


On 17 Feb 1999 craig@jcb-sc.com wrote:

> Finally, I think this would make for enough of a user-visible difference
> that, IMO, it should not be the default, but be enabled by an option,
> which, if it is indeed not on by default, I suggest be called
> something like `-ffail-faster'.

Don't get me wrong, buf I find the very idea of having such an option -
turned off by default - preposterous.

PERHAPS if gcc was not a command-line compiler, but some product with GUI,
global options etc. Than you would set this option once and forget about
it on the next day.

But dragging a command-line option for something as minor as this? What
for? So that, in case the compiler finds an error, it terminates faster? 
Options specify the expected behaviour of the compiler. Errors are
opposite: they are unexpected. What's the point in specifying the
compiler's behaviour in unexpected situations, if we can't guarantee
anything anyway?

Let's be serious. Either the feature should be on by default (and than
adding an option to turn it off makes sense) or it shouldn't be integrated
into the compiler at all.

/ Kamil Iskra    AmigaOS  Linux/i386  Linux/m68k               \
| GeekGadgets m68k-amigaos GCC maintainer                      |
| iskra@student.uci.agh.edu.pl  kiskra@ernie.icslab.agh.edu.pl |
\ kamil@dwd.interkom.pl   http://student.uci.agh.edu.pl/~iskra /



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