Re: Putting C++ code into gcc front end

[Daniel Berlin <dberlin at dberlin dot org>]

On Tuesday, March 4, 2003, at 12:36  PM, Phil Edwards wrote:

> On Tue, Mar 04, 2003 at 06:06:29PM +0100, Steven Bosscher wrote:
> > Op di 04-03-2003, om 15:45 schreef Richard Earnshaw:
> > > > Is it reasonable in 2003 to have a quite complex compiler written in
> > > > K&R C?  Not even ISO C?
> > >
> > > The last time this came up (probably less than 6 months ago), the 
> > > answer
> > > was "yes".  We've been round this discussion before.  Let's not 
> > > rehash all
> > > the same old arguments again.
> >
> > I believe that the answer was: "Yes, because we have exactly one
> > platform that does not come with an ISO C compiler (HPUX).  We will 
> > look
> > at this issue again in the 3.4 time frame".
>
> Daniel Berlin wrote what is IMHO the best and most precise summary of 
> all
> arguments for removing the K&R requirement:
>
>     http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc-patches/2003-01/msg00675.html
>
> Note the "HP agrees with us" bit.

and in case people are curious where i drew that conclusion from, i 
noticed that i forgot to mention sources.
Just so one doesn't think i'm making it up, it's repeated by HP people 
at every turn. For example:
http://h21007.www2.hp.com/hpux-devtools/CXX/hpux-devtools.0203/0017.html
(Note: "Not suitable for application development")
In fact,  "The bundled C compiler, strictly speaking, shouldn't be 
referred to as a
K&R compiler either.  It's really just been given enough features to be
able to compile the kernel." (from an email i don't have a URL because 
it was forwarded to me by an HP person).

That made me laugh a bit, then cry.
--Dan