Re: Switching to C++ by default in 4.8

[Diego Novillo <dnovillo at google dot com>]

On 4/4/12 8:04 AM, Richard Guenther wrote:

> I agree for the idea of converting all of GCC to C++ (whatever that means).

Right.  The conversion that does happen, can be gradual.  One other big 
advantage I see in this effort, is the transition to commonly used 
programming idioms and patterns.  This will lower barriers of entry to 
new developers, which is crucial to the long term survival of the 
project.  I've heard many new developers (experienced compiler 
developers even) express frustration at the obtuse and obscure patterns 
they find in GCC.

> I disagree for the part making the internal infrastructure easier to use,
> understand and maintain.  Which means targeting mostly isolated sub-systems,
> like vec.h (and other various containers), double-int.[ch] (and other various
> way of representing and working with constants).  Making tree or gimple a
> C++ class with inheritance and whatever is indeed a huge waste of time
> and existing developer ressources (that, if only because they have to adapt
> and maintain two completely different code-bases over some time).
>
> I expect the GCC core to maintain written in C, compiled by C++.

I'm not sure about that long term, but I agree that this will likely be 
true for several releases.  We want to be careful, of course. 
Particularly with the core sub-systems.

> > I also find debugging C++ in gdb somewhat more annoying than debugging
> > plain C, and at the moment I always go back to a stage1 compiler.
>
> Indeed - I'd be worried if my debugging efficiency decreases by more than 5%.

We should take this opportunity to help improve gdb by filing bugs.


Diego.