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Re: MS/CW-style inline assembly for GCC
Dale Johannesen wrote:
On May 6, 2004, at 6:40 PM, Mark Mitchell wrote:
For me, compatibility is the number one priority. Ease of use comes
That's what I figured. :-)
So, let's take truth-and-beauty out of the discussion; this isn't
about a better technology. It might or might not be better, but
that's not the root of the issue. The bottom line is that Apple
wants CW syntax because it wants to convert existing CW users to GCC
users. To do that, it wants to be able to say "you can just
recompile your code" rathern than "you have to rewrite your code".
In fact, for all widely-used CW extensions, Apple would probably like
to see them in GCC. It's easy to see the Apple product-marketing
logic here.
I've been staying out of this since I'm of the "they should be writing
.s files" school, but
criticizing the idea *on these grounds* seems unreasonable.
I'm not criticizing the idea because it makes sense to Apple's
product-marketing people, and I'm certainly not trying to draw any moral
conclusion about Apple's desires. Doing what makes sense for your
company is what running a business is all about. My point was only that
I don't think that the primary motivation from Apple is that this is a
better assembly syntax; the primary motiviation is that it's
CW-compatible. Some other equally better assembly syntax that was not
CW-compatible would be nowhere near as attractive to Apple. So, I think
we should be talking about what benefits being compatible brings -- as
you did by talking about the fact that the GCC community might increase
as a result of this change -- rather than talk about how wonderful the
syntax is.
Your counter-argument -- that making this change will so increase in GCC
so as to provide new longer-term benefits that outweigh the costs -- is
definintely well-formed, but I don't buy it. Perhaps I'm not visionary
enough. :-) I still think that this is a feature that will have more
costs that benefits -- largely because I see little benefit from this
feature on non-Apple platforms.
--
Mark Mitchell
CodeSourcery, LLC
(916) 791-8304
mark@codesourcery.com