Re: History of GCC

[Ed Smith-Rowland <3dw4rd at verizon dot net>]

On 10/26/2016 01:17 PM, Will Hawkins wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 26, 2016 at 1:15 PM, Ian Lance Taylor <iant@google.com> wrote:
> > 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.
There was a split between what would become gfortran and what I still 
think is g95 (www.g95.org).
gfortran was stood up at gcc-4.0 I think.  The earlier g77 front end was 
just too difficult to repair.
Also, Fortran-90, 95 were out with many useful changes and people wanted 
to add them to a new codebase.
The author of g95 developed a pure GPL (not library LGPL version of the 
Fortran runtime.)  This was the split.
This was in mid 2000 or so.

I am a numerics geek.  The fact that gcc has both C++ and Fortran in a 
single kit is very important to me.
I think it maybe one of the last systems that has both.  Certainly it is 
the only Free suite that does.

The Fortran developers* have kept up rather aggressively with 
Fortran-95, 2000, 2008 and TRs.
* my contributions are exclusively to C++, and the C++ linrary.
> > 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
> Wow, thanks Ian! This is awesome stuff! As I read through it, I may
> have some additional questions. If I do, would you mind if I emailed
> you directly? Thanks again for taking the time to write all this down!
> Fascinating!
>
> Will