This is the mail archive of the
gcc@gcc.gnu.org
mailing list for the GCC project.
Re: GCC 4.3 target deprecation proposals
- From: Joe Buck <Joe dot Buck at synopsys dot COM>
- To: Paolo Bonzini <bonzini at gnu dot org>
- Cc: NightStrike <nightstrike at gmail dot com>, John David Anglin <dave at hiauly1 dot hia dot nrc dot ca>, "Joseph S. Myers" <joseph at codesourcery dot com>, gcc at gcc dot gnu dot org, liqin at sunnorth dot com dot cn, dave dot anglin at nrc dot ca, matt at 3am-software dot com, joern dot rennecke at arc dot com, m dot hayes at elec dot canterbury dot ac dot nz, nickc at redhat dot com, aldyh at redhat dot com, nathan at codesourcery dot com, ni1d at arrl dot net, geoffk at geoffk dot org, paul dot woegerer at nsc dot com
- Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2008 10:31:35 -0800
- Subject: Re: GCC 4.3 target deprecation proposals
- References: <Pine.LNX.4.64.0801211859440.11050@digraph.polyomino.org.uk> <200801212005.m0LK55vR020709@hiauly1.hia.nrc.ca> <b609cb3b0801220106n52b3195k74c833c9802791f0@mail.gmail.com> <4795BC1F.2050303@gnu.org>
On Tue, Jan 22, 2008 at 10:49:19AM +0100, Paolo Bonzini wrote:
>
> >I work for a company that makes significant use of gcc to target vax.
> >The people involved are users, not developers, of gcc. Does any part
> >of the deprecation requirements take into account user base, or just
> >developer base?
>
> Neither, actually. It's tester base that counts the most.
Yes. The problem is that often users of ancient hardware will also
be users of very old versions of the software; if they don't help test
the latest code (the gcc trunk), then there's no way to tell whether
the latest code actually works. Code that is not tested is almost
always broken code.
Remember that Joseph's message that started this thread said that one
criterion would be that no test results have been reported to
gcc-testresults for a year. If you start contributing test results
for a port, then it might (no promises) be removed from any deprecation
lists (unless the report says you can't even build the compiler and
no one can be found to help fix it).
So if you're a vax user, you can help keep the vax port alive by helping
to test it, reporting bugs, and testing proposed fixes. That's no
guarantee, by the way, as volunteers are still needed to implement
the fixes. Your company might want to consider contributing either
staff time or money to pay a consultant to help with maintaining the
vax port if it's important to you.