Re: A patch for linux 2.1.127

[rich_paul at bigfoot dot com]

It seems to me like that tool exists, but it's not gas.  gas can't be all
things to all people, and I think it is intented to speak a pseudo
assembly language which is portable.  As always, portable code is not
nessisarily what you want, sometimes speed is more important.  So use a
tool that's right for THAT job ... perhaps Intel's 80x86 assembler, for (
as you described ) an intel device driver, or another piece of code
intended for use only on one machine, or one type of machine.

But it seems like THAT tool wouldn't be an appropriate post-processor for
gcc, unless gcc was to become an intel only tool.  So why not use gas as a
post-processor for gcc,  which should be easy, since it speaks a pseudo
assembly language which is portable.

Just my two cents. 

 --------
Where do you want to crash, toady?
On Tue, 10 Nov 1998, Richard B. Johnson wrote:

> I think that assemblers (as opposed to compilers) should be specifically
> written for a platform. We have at this company collectively, about
> 100 years of Intel Assembly expertise. To force a foreign language
> (GNU pseudo-assembly) on long-time assembly-language experts tends
> to dampen their interest in becoming involved in helping to streamline
> sections of code that are frequently executed. One of our experts
> tried to port working video controller code to Linux and gave up
> in disgust. This was going to sign-on with a Penguin Logo and show
> startup messages in a box.