This is the mail archive of the gcc@gcc.gnu.org mailing list for the GCC project.


Index Nav: [Date Index] [Subject Index] [Author Index] [Thread Index]
Message Nav: [Date Prev] [Date Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next]

Re: GCC Needs a backend cleanup and complete rewrite


On Thu, Feb 22, 2001 at 11:47:30PM +0100, Marc Espie wrote:
> In article <20010222145741.E25209@disaster.jaj.com> you write:
> >I would love to see this.  Maybe not in C++, but along the same lines.
> >One of the many difficulties in changing the implementation language is that
> >FSF requires GCC to be buildable on just about any machine that ever worked,
> >even if it only has a K&R compiler from the previous century.  (Okay, that
> >was a lame shot, sorry.)  We cannot assume the existence of a bootstrapping
> >C++/whatever compiler the same way as we can assume a C compiler.
> 
> Note the existence of this wonderful little tool that is called a 
> cross-compiler.

Maybe my message came across as discouraging.  It wasn't meant to be; I
would dearly love to see GCC implemented in something else.

Nor do I have any problem with a tiny bootstrap program written in C; the
user calls the native C compiler to build that program, which then does
the rest of the bootstrap.  (I've done vaguely similar things, but nothing
as large or as important as a compiler.)  It's just that right now our
"tiny little program" is the entire C back-end.

One of the design assumptions for my dream compiler is that people wanting to
build it from scratch are probably going to have to start with a precompiled
binary of the same compiler (possibly an older version), which was in turn
made with that wonderful little tool called a cross-compiler.  Assuming no
more resources than a K&R compiler just seems silly these days; it feels
like we've been handed three tin cans, a round towitt, and a toilet plunger,
and asked to build a working sailplane.


Phil

-- 
pedwards at disaster dot jaj dot com  |  pme at sources dot redhat dot com
devphil at several other less interesting addresses in various dot domains
The gods do not protect fools.  Fools are protected by more capable fools.


Index Nav: [Date Index] [Subject Index] [Author Index] [Thread Index]
Message Nav: [Date Prev] [Date Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next]