Re: Status and rationale for toplevel bootstrap (was Re: Example of debugging GCC with toplevel bootstrap)

[Daniel Jacobowitz <drow at false dot org>]

On Mon, Jan 16, 2006 at 09:24:29AM -0500, Richard Kenner wrote:
>     The point of --disable-bootstrap is to disable bootstrapping.  
> 
> Why would somebody ever want to *disable* it? If you don't want to
> bootstrap, you just don't *do* it!

Oh come on.  This is semantics.  --disable-bootstrap is the equivalent
of not doing it.

>     The most important of these is libgcc and the crt startup files, which
>     currently do live in the gcc directory, and folks have wanted to move
>     out of it for five or ten years.  We can't skip them during a
>     bootstrap; it just won't work.
> 
> Why is it so important to move them out?  It would seem to me that the
> bootstrap issue is a good reason *not* to!
> 
> So we define the GCC directory as containing precisely those things that
> are *needed* for a bootstrap and those things outside are things that we
> might also *want* to bootstrap.

It's important because:

  - People want to build libgcc at a separate time for the compiler.
  - The current build system has piles of cruft related to the fact
    that half of the GCC subdirectory is built using a different
    compiler than the other half.
  - The current layout is a mess and very hard to untangle from the
    compiler proper.

I realize that none of these things are issues for you, personally.
Part of playing in the same tree as everybody else is that you need
to consider other people's concerns from time to time, though.  We're
listening to yours; please stop blowing off mine.

-- 
Daniel Jacobowitz
CodeSourcery