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Re: Faster compilation speed
- From: dewar at gnat dot com (Robert Dewar)
- To: dewar at gnat dot com, kenner at vlsi1 dot ultra dot nyu dot edu
- Cc: gcc at gcc dot gnu dot org
- Date: Sat, 10 Aug 2002 13:55:50 -0400 (EDT)
- Subject: Re: Faster compilation speed
<<Yes, but whenever that happened, it represented a scoping problem in the
front end. If the entities in question only involved constants, switching to
GC indeed "removed" the bug. But in most of these cases, the problem could
also occur where non-constants are involved. In that case, what we've done
is to replace a memory corruption problem in the compiler which causes a
crash with a bug that generates subtly wrong code. Not a good trade, in my
opinion. In most cases, though, what this does is that it makes the scoping
bug become latent.
>>
Of course in retrospect the fierce rules on scoping were a HUGE mistake, and
it is too bad that they cannot be fixed in gigi. Almost all of the time, the
requirement for "correct" scoping is entirely artificial, since there is
no code for elaboraiton of the declaration (this is true for instance of
almost all itypes).