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Re: Proposal: remove the Obj-C++ front end
- From: Steven Bosscher <stevenb dot gcc at gmail dot com>
- To: basile at starynkevitch dot net
- Cc: Mike Stump <mikestump at comcast dot net>, Stan Shebs <stanshebs at earthlink dot net>, GCC Mailing List <gcc at gcc dot gnu dot org>, IainS <developer at sandoe-acoustics dot co dot uk>, David Edelsohn <dje at gcc dot gnu dot org>, Ian Lance Taylor <ian at airs dot com>, Andrew Pinski <pinskia at gmail dot com>
- Date: Thu, 20 May 2010 22:26:24 +0200
- Subject: Re: Proposal: remove the Obj-C++ front end
- References: <AANLkTimohn5v0bzS79n-jNr4TjYlReFVE2AULjxwKRMq@mail.gmail.com> <1274386835.32470.7.camel@glinka>
On Thu, May 20, 2010 at 10:20 PM, Basile Starynkevitch
<basile@starynkevitch.net> wrote:
> On Thu, 2010-05-20 at 21:02 +0200, Steven Bosscher wrote:
>> Hello,
>>
>> The Obj-C++ front end is effectively unmaintained, and has virtually
>> no serious users. I propose to remove it from GCC.
>
> Maybe we could consider, for the putative people wanting to maintain
> that frontend, to make it a plugin (or perhaps an external program
> producing Gimple-syntax).
I think this is an interesting idea in principle. But IMHO removing
ObjC++ is perpendicular to fe-as-plugins.
FWIW the infrastructure for front ends as plugins is not ready and
probably will not be ready for some time to come (got time? :-). We
will first need to separate the front ends better from the rest of the
compiler.
For example, front ends should not have to call
cgraph_finalize_compilation_unit. It should be the middle-end calling
the front end to just produce GIMPLE and a cgraph, and then return to
let the middle-end finish the translation units. I'm using this as an
example because one of the big blockers for this change are (yes,
you've guessed it!) the ObjC/ObjC++ front ends. :-)
Ciao!
Steven