This is the mail archive of the
gcc@gcc.gnu.org
mailing list for the GCC project.
Re: GCC 4.0 Status Report (2005-02-03)
Steven Bosscher wrote:
On Thursday 03 February 2005 20:49, Mark Mitchell wrote:
Therefore, we will use the same proposal-based procedure that we used
(late) in the GCC 4.0 timeframe. If you have already completed, or
are planning to complete, a substantial project that you would like to
include in GCC 4.1, please send me the following information:
Can that information go the the mailing list instead?
>
> IMVHO sending everything to you does not fit the "Open Development
> Environment" that the SC has in its mission statement.
I didn't in any way imply that people couldn't spread the word more
widely. I certainly don't mind if people send it elsewhere, but a copy
certainly needs to go to me.
And, yes, I want to be open -- but I do not think that means exposing
every decision to public discussion. My role is to make decisions that
advance the overall state of the compiler. Sometimes, it yields better
results to make certain decisions in smaller groups. I sometimes make
decisions by consulting privately with experts whose opinions I value,
and I will continue to do that.
Will you try to stick to the 6 month development plan that we have,
officially anyway, for GCC 4.1?
I'm not sure, yet; that will depend in part on the amount of work queued
for 4.1
Or should the development plan beupdated to reflect your new way of
working (ie. the projects info collecting thing) and the actual
development schedule that we seem to be working on.
It would probably be good if the development document was updated to
reflect the new procedure -- after we're sure we like it. I'm a little
hesitant to take the 4.0 experiment and judge it "the Right Way" at this
point. Let's see how 4.1 goes.
With so much work queued for 4.1, I'm wondering if you should just
say "No" to a lot of work, or if we should just say that the cycle
of 6 months is not realistic, and update the development plan to
say the development cycle is a full year.
4.0 was clearly an exceptional case due to the introduction of so much
major infrastructure. What's delayed 4.0 the most has been knock-on
effects from those changes. If there had been no bugs introduced by the
various rewrites, we would have had a release months ago. I hope that
4.1 does not cause so much upheaval, but perhaps that will turn out to
be naive.
In any case, yes, I may say "no" to some projects, just as I did for 4.0.
Any idea what "some time" will be? Two weeks? A month?
No, I don't know yet; hopefully, it will be enough time to settle
things: no more, no less. For some patches, it might be no time at all;
for others, it might be a month. We shall have to see.
Therefore, my current expectation for a GCC 4.0 release date is April 15th.
Is that not too optimistic?
I don't know for certain.
I do know that setting the date further does not necessarily result in a
better product. In fact, we always get a lot of bugs fixed when we come
up on the planned release date, as people start to worry about the
release actually going out with their pet bug in it.
--
Mark Mitchell
CodeSourcery, LLC
mark@codesourcery.com
(916) 791-8304