Re: Putting C++ code into gcc front end

[Benjamin Kosnik <bkoz at redhat dot com>]

> The bottom line was: We should be able to use C++ where appropriate.

Too bad "be able" isn't the same as "free" here.

Even more to Tom's original point: it's a waste of valuable maintainer
time to re-write C++ bits in C. We are all too busy as it is: "C"
translation busy work is not helpful. It's not easy to do, some ideas
and code organization methods are hard or impossible to express in C,
the end result is sometimes a disappointment, and the situation then
becomes even more difficult to maintain with two separate versions in
two languages.

I think Richard Earnshaw has indicated the way forward here. Instead of
penalizing every gcc user with a modern compiler (the vast majority),
instead make the K&R folk do a pre-bootstrap stage-0 compiler. This
seems sane.

Next, the C++ front end converted to ISO C. Kaveh, Richard Earnshaw, and
Nathan seem to agree that this is possible.

Then, everything is cool.

-benjamin