Re: open watcom compiling gcc on win32

["Edward S. Peschko" <esp5 at pge dot com>]

> > So, as far as I see it, watcom is the only viable choice for what I
> > want to do.  And if I could compile gcc with watcom, I could pretty
> > much compile anything gnu-like.

> Actually, your problem is not so much the compiler itself as the make
> machinery and the APIs available.

> The second problem (Posix compatibility) is generall more tough to
> solve. You either have to develop to a Posix emulation library (like
> Cygwin) or you have to do a major rewrite of the projects by replcing
> Posix style constructs with their more or less equivalent Windows
> functionality.

well, I have no problem *using* cygwin or dynamically linking a cygwin.dll.

But - the cygwin dll that I produce has to 'play well' with vc++ dlls. 
And *that's* what watcom provides.  In fact, that was what I was planning on 
doing. Compiling cygwin with watcom to produce a vc++ compatible cygwin dll.

And what I'm saying is that is what gcc should provide.  gcc, ld, ar, as, on win32 
should produce visual C++ compatible dlls.

Borland does it, watcom does it.. I don't know if the intel compiler 
does it, but I bet it does - VC++, 6 and above, is the standard by default
on those platforms. 

And since watcom is open source, it points the path on how to do it - no 
reverse engineering needed. I already talked to the watcom folks; the 
license explicitly allows people to look at the code and reverse engineer 
concepts. They might be mad if whole sections of code were taken and encorporated
into gcc outright, but I doubt that would even be feasible in the first place.

Ed

(
ps - apparently watcom 1.2 compatibility with VC++ is pretty damn good, ie
production ready or approaching it. At least that's what I surmised when 
googling for it, and asking around. Although I admit I have a small sample 
(5 'works fine for me's' and one resolved production problem.)

In any case, its something to check out.

Here's one thread: 

http://makeashorterlink.com/?U29316D37
)