Re: Convert 3.2 sources to ISO C90

[George dot R dot Goffe at seagate dot com]

Stan,

I for one agree with you, for what my opinion is worth.

Regards,

George...






Stan Shebs <shebs@apple.com>@gcc.gnu.org on 06/05/2002 01:04:20 PM

Sent by:  gcc-owner@gcc.gnu.org


To:   gcc@gcc.gnu.org
cc:

Subject:  Convert 3.2 sources to ISO C90


Now that 3.1 is out, and we've flushed lots of old obsolete configs
from the sources, it's a good time to consider dropping the
anachronistic requirement that GCC sources be written in K&R C.

Once upon a time, this was the right thing to do; there were many
systems for which only an ancient C compiler was available, and
in the absence of effective cross-compilation machinery, it was
necessary that GCC be compilable by the ancient host compiler.

The situation today is quite different.  While there may still be
hosts for which only a pre-ISO compiler is available from the
vendor (HPs come to mind), there aren't any that don't already
have a GCC port, and there is no chance that any new ones will
materialize in the future.

In fact, the era of K&R compilers is so far past that many of our
younger developers have never even seen such a compiler, and GCC's
rules of K&R compatibility are just this mumbo-jumbo that takes
cycles away from real development.  Admittedly, it's not a huge
cost, but why spend even small amounts of time on something that's
no longer needed?

So I'd like to formally propose that the K&R compatibility requirement
be dropped for 3.2, and that patches converting K&R syntax to pure
ISO be accepted as obvious improvements.

Stan