Re: Some thoughts and quetsions about the data flow infrastracture

[kenner at vlsi1 dot ultra dot nyu dot edu (Richard Kenner)]

> >>>>> Vladimir Makarov writes:
> 
> Vlad> Especially I did not like David Edelhson's phrase "and no new
> Vlad> private dataflow schemes will be allowed in gcc passes".  It was not
> Vlad> such his first expression.  Such phrases are killing competition which
> Vlad> is bad for gcc.  What if the new specialized scheme is faster.  What
> Vlad> if somebody decides to write another better df infrastructure from the
> Vlad> scratch to solve the coming df infrastructure problems.
> 
> 	First, "another better df infrastructure" is not a private
> explained on the IRC chat, the new df is general infrastructure.  If you
> can speed it up more, that's great.  If you need another dataflow problem
> solved, add it to the infrastructure.  GCC is not served well by five (5)
> different dataflow solvers, each with its own quirks, bugs, duplicative
> memory and duplicative maintenance.  

I agree.  "Competition" and making things "better" is not always the right
approach for a project the size of GCC: in fact, it's more often *not*
the right approach.  In a project like GCC, stability is more important.
Once something is written, it's obsolete.  But changing something in the
infrastructure (or duplicating it) affects stability and the gain is
rarely worth it.