Re: Target deprecation, round four

[Zack Weinberg <zack at codesourcery dot com>]

Nathanael Nerode <neroden at twcny dot rr dot com> writes:

>Richard Earnshaw said:
>>Surely a release containing the deprecation announcement should be
>>made *before* we start removing the code...  As it stands you are
>>proposing to delete the code from the mainline before most of the
>>world is even aware of this.
>
> I deprecated vax-vms for 3.3 and promptly deleted it from mainline.
> But this is because vax-vms (a) wasn't working, (b) hadn't been for
> a long time, and (c) had over 10,000 lines of code devoted to it.  I
> would agree that deletions of *working* targets be delayed until the
> version with the deprecation has been released.  But deletions of
> *non-working* targets, I think, can take place as soon as possible.

The trouble with this otherwise reasonable suggestion is, (a) I have
no way to tell whether the majority of the targets on the list are
still working; (b) we have no schedule for the 3.3 release.  Also, I
am holding off on several performance patches that will involve
touching lots of back-end code, because I don't want to waste time on
targets that will be deleted in short order.  And it's not hard to
pull a deleted target back from CVS if someone does turn up expressing
interest.

But a wider announcement should happen.  How about I send the list to
gcc-announce now, and wait another week before making any actual
changes?

zw