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Re: History of GCC
- From: Ian Lance Taylor <iant at google dot com>
- To: Will Hawkins <whh8b at virginia dot edu>
- Cc: GCC Development <gcc at gcc dot gnu dot org>
- Date: Wed, 26 Oct 2016 10:15:58 -0700
- Subject: Re: History of GCC
- Authentication-results: sourceware.org; auth=none
- References: <CAE+MWFvVTkYjypsL3PLDk=qx_+VDNwRR0=YRN_dMqQHsDpNynw@mail.gmail.com> <CAKOQZ8xF6+_pSbnQ1Ku=PuF8Wkfq7siXHA47fQbGzAO29kSxvg@mail.gmail.com> <CAE+MWFvCJQU7wTTg_g6dov6iBfcprCDiL4G+CMc8MLvObHYwpQ@mail.gmail.com>
On Wed, Oct 26, 2016 at 9:31 AM, Will Hawkins <whh8b@virginia.edu> wrote:
>
> Thank you for your response! I don't think that there has to be
> controversy to be interesting. Obviously that split/reunification was
> important, but I think that there might even be some value in
> documenting the minutia of the project's growth. In other words, what
> was the process for incorporating each new version of the C++
> standard? Who and why did GCC start a frontend for X language? Things
> like that.
It is easier to answer specific questions.
There have always been GCC developers that have tracked the evolution
of C++. The first C++ standard was of course in 1998, at which point
the language was over 10 years old, so there were a lot of C++
language changes before then. GCC has generally acquired new language
features as they were being adopted into the standard, usually
controlled by options like the current -std=c++1z. This of course
means that the new features have shifted as the standard has shifted,
but as far as I know that hasn't happened too often.
GCC started as a C compiler. The C++ frontend was started by Michael
Tiemann around 1987 or so. It started as a patch and was later
incorporated into the mainline.
The Objective C frontend was started at NeXT. They originally
intended to keep it proprietary, but when they understood that the GPL
made that impossible they contributed it back. I forget when the
Objective C++ frontend came in.
Cygnus Support developed the Chill and, later, Java frontends. The
Chill frontend was removed later, and in fact the Java frontend was
removed just recently.
As I recall Fortran was a hobbyist project that eventually made it in.
There were two competing forks, I think. I don't remember too much
about that off the top of my head.
The Ada frontend was developed at AdaCore.
The Go frontend was written by me, mostly because I like Go and I've
been working on GCC for a long time. I work at Google, and Go was
developed at Google, but there wouldn't be a GCC Go frontend if I
hadn't decided to write one.
There is a Modula frontend that is always close to getting in. I
think there is a Pascal frontend out there too, somewhere. And a D
frontend.
Ian